Postage Due - Colors

All,

I know colors are very difficult to see in scans but would appreciated your thoughts. The stamp on the left was in my collection as J1 (Brown) and the stamp on the right was in my collection as J15 (Red Brown). I am confident on the J15 but was less confident in the J1. I recently added the middle stamp at a good price hoping it was a true J1 (as least from the web image it had a chance). I received it today and given the comparison below it appears to be more red brown J15. Nice stamp and will still keep it given the price but feel disappointed and I am now less confident in my initial J1 copy.

Your input/thoughts are appreciated.
Hobsun

I'm not confident on your J15. It looks claret to me (i.e. J22). The first two look red-brown, although very tough to tell without a known reference for comparsion. Some of the red browns get pretty close to brown, and the pale shades like yours are most difficult.

Ah..rarely talked about postage dues J1-J28 on SCF! Brown, red brown, pale red brown, orange brown, deep brown, deep red brown, yellow brown, bright claret, dark claret, light claret, yellowish brown . Holy you know what .. Add my partial color blindness.... institutionalize me now. Good luck.

On a more serious note, the initial 1879-1883 issue was suppose to be reddish brown. However earliest issues ended up pale brown and yellowish brown but as time passed became more reddish brown. Apparently some stamps in late 1883 were light red brown... I'm confused already.

By the way, if you find an orange brown, it's an 1884-1889 issue J15-J21. But a yellow-brown is 1879 issue.

Good luck. By the way, I have no idea if your stamps are red brown, claret or just brown. I stare and stare and stare and get nowhere

Righthand stamp appears claret. If you put it under UV it should fluoresce. The other two appear brown in this scan, but they do come in all those shades, and comparisons (or decades of experience) are needed to be reasonably sure.

J1, Deep Brown, J1 Brown, J15 Red Brown?, J22 Bright Claret
At least I think that's what these are..... Hope this helps you, providing I've got the colors right

All,

Thanks for the feedback. I was able to put these three stamps and several others (which I considered to be bright claret) under a uv 254 lamp.

All of those stamps that I had considered initially to be bright claret (with the exception of 1) seemed to show up with a a bit of a yellowish tinge when viewed under the light (is that what fluorescence should appear as). To me it was clear that these stamps were different from the three I provided above as each of these three remained dull/dark.

As noted, among the set I had considered to be Bright claret 1 of them did not show the yellowish tinge thus I likely incorrectly ID that stamp and it is likely red brown. The above test also leads me to believe that my far right stamp is not Bright Claret since it did not show that tinge.

Al your photo shows the range quite well in terms of comparison. If I had to guess at this point my right stamp is likely brown, the left red brown, and the middle I will call red brown assuming the lesser in value between J15 vs J1. Sure wish a more conclusive alternative ID was possible. My goal would be to find samples in line with the deep brown for J1 - J5 while using fluorescence on the other sets for validity.

Edit: Now my left stamp looks red brown as well - not good.

Open to any further input or feedback.

Thanks again.
Hobsun

from White and Bower, Encyclopedia of the Colors of US Postage Stamps "Postage Due Issues"

I'll post red brown and claret colors tomorrow if this is helpful.

Alligator, your second stamp looks definite J1, and is very nice!

With all the other posted scans of browns, I'm now 95%+ sure that the OP's stamps are J15, J15 & J22. Only if Hobsun013's scanner is way out of calibration would they be something else.

For what it is worth, I concur with srailkb. But my level of confidence is a bit lower; I am always leery of offering an opinion on colors for the reasons we have discussed ad nauseam.
Don

51studebaker, the scanner would have to be adding a LOT of red for those to be J1, J1 & J15 and come out looking like that. ...and since the black background doesn't seem to have a red cast to it, I'll stick with my 95% :-)

Sorry for confusion, I was agreeing with your logic but am less confident in online imaging.
Don

All,

I have never calibrated my scanner and it is not a high end item (older cannon) so this may a contributing factor. As initially stated it is obvious that scanned images can show differently for each of us. I can say that the far right stamp does does not show the fluorescence that was clearly evident when scanned against other stamps that I had considered to be bright claret. It remained quick dull under the uv light while several others in my collection definitely glowed. Again what I saw was a yellowish tinge glow on the other stamps - is that what one should expect?

My thoughts were that since it didn't glow it would be J15 since it clearly has red in it. When compared to the others to me it seems they cannot all be J15 due to the large variance so I went with J1 on the first one but recognize that numerous shades and variances exist.

As always thanks for the input and the chance to learn.
Hobsun

Hobsun,

You are correct that claret shade of 1891-1893 was printed with fluorescent inks. These stamps fluoresce orange to varying degrees (yellow-orange, bright orange, pinkish orange to darker brownish orange).

Now the kicker... there are examples of claret shade stamps printed with with a non-fluorescing type of claret ink in 1890 or perhaps earlier. These dark clarets are distinct from the 1891-1893 printings that fluoresce orange (varying degrees).

Scott catalog unfortunately groups stamps together based only on main color category, not their fluorescence, thus making identification of all this quite impossible (in my opinion) and categorization a mess. Scott is inadequate and perhaps turns the collector off to this issue. At least it does to me. Specialists that love color may find this exciting, but I don't.

For example, your third stamp (on right) appears definitely claret to me (as others have said). However it doesn't fluoresce per your evaluation. Thus it may be truly claret or a dark brown red shade (lake). If it is claret but has non-fluorescent ink, should it be a J22 or J15?

I'm confused reading and writing this stuff.

red-brown shades 1884+

Well now that these reference pages are scanned in, it all seems so easy.... NOT! (at least for me)





The money stamp in all this is the relatively scarce 3c red brown J17. Apparently 3c Due stamp found little use after 1883. With such a sudden drop in use and the ample overstock of supply of older 3c stamps, there was no reason to print 3c Dues from 1883-1887. Thus the high Scott catalog value for J17!

Anyone with good color eyes, I would like to know if either of these has a shot at the rare 3c red brown J17? I think used stamp on left has a shot. Why is this so difficult?