Color Ink On Handstamped Cancellations Of The First Issues

Looked on revunue collectors site at the cancels for first issue seriers handstamped cancels. I see numerous, black, red, blue and some green, a couple of magenta/purple. only 1 which he said is brown.

Has anyone else have copies of first issue series handstamped cancels in colors other than those listed?

Surprised with all the colors available and used during that time I have not seen, yellow, orange or any other brown ones.

Please advise if you have a copy or have seen one yourself. I am just starting to look thru some auction catalogues to see if I can locate some.

Thank you for your time and assistance

Blue and black were in common use at the time, and were therefore very inexpensive. Red was also used a fair amount. Colors cost more money, sometimes a lot more, and usually served no purpose that a black or blue cancel would not serve. The same was true for classic postage issues, which is why some colors often have significant value.

I need to go back through and recategorize some of the cancel color assignments, as many were done early on in my revenue collecting. In my opinion, ink color on manuscript cancels is pretty much immaterial to value (with one exception, which I will get to later). Assigning colors is really only useful and contribute to value on handstamped, printed, and stencilled cancels.

True brown ink cancels, as opposed to faded or otherwise environmentally affected black/gray ink, are very scarce... more scarce than green, which is also quite scarce, although less so.

One needs to be careful when calling a cancel green, as it frequently is actually blue, but when applied to yellow or brown stamps can cause the optical illusion of green.

The most scarce cancel ink color, in my opinion, is gold or other metallic ink. There was an ornate gold-ink handstamp cancel in the Cunliffe collection, if memory serves. That is the only gold handstamp I have ever seen. I have two examples of manuscript cancels that I believe to be gold ink.

Here are some examples of what I consider to be brown ink cancels, the first one being a stencil used as a photographer's backstamp rather than an actual stamp cancel in this case:

















Green:














The two gold ink cancels:

Thank you for the outstanding lesson on ink. I had never seen gold ink before. Thank you.

Also I did not think about the costs associated with materials and such and thus why all the rarer ink cancels whether revenue or classic postage.

Thank you both for tonights class :)

Wonderful cancels and stamps, revenuecollector! Thanks for sharing. Some of the cancel colors as seen on my computer don't quite match the colors as described.

The square cancel on the 20c Inland Exchange looks black to me. The other browns are beautiful examples.

The oval green cancel on the 25c Certificate is a beauty! The other greens appear to be bluish green or more bluish shades - maybe just how the scans appear on my computer.

The gold manuscript on the 50c issue is great! The manuscript cancel on the $3 looks like it might have some bleach in the ink or something, as it appears to have lightened the stamp design color where the ink is present. This may also be an artifact of the scan appearance on my computer screen.

Quite a nice display of colors!

Great stuff, revenuecollector! The colors all appear as described on my computer.

I have the same Citizens Fire Ins. Co. cancel on an R46a, but mine looks more blue-green, so after seeing your cancels I'm not sure if mine is really green. Here it is:

Yeah, some of the greens are "blue-greens". They are not all the same; consistency in mixing inks was likely all over the map. The Citizen's Fire Ins. Co. cancels are a blue-green, but I certainly would not classify them as blue.

Some of the colors are not easily classified and there are definitely differences. Some red cancels are bright red, whereas others are a dark red. Some magenta cancels lean towards purple whereas others lean pink or orange.

By the way, if you want to see a wider range of colors, one of the search options on my website search page is by cancel color:

http://www.revenue-collector.com/ca...search.shtml


Here are some examples of variance in red cancels. The one on the 3-cent green is almost orange, which is a shade I have not actually seen in cancel form.

Thank you. Your website is a tremendous resource.