How Do You Recognize The Color?

Hi guys, I've got a question. Maybe it's a stupid one, maybe not, but I'm really interested in. Could you tell me, how do you recognize the color of the stamp? I have the michel catalog of colors, but stamps usually change during the time their color, so then I'm not sure if it's blue, ultramarine, gray-blue, etc. In another conversation I've seen, that you might use an software or maybe something else. So, could you help me? I would be really glad. Thank you in advance

Lubos Hi,

My suggestion is to practice, it is not easy but as you said, very interesting.
Last evening, I got my whole family into guessing the colour of the satmp in this thread;

https://goscf.com/t/9641

We argued, discussed, disagreed and came to a solution. It may not be correct, but it was fun coming to our decision.
Colours take time, especially on used stamps that have been soaked.
Practice with some examples, it's a lot of fun.
Use your Michel colour code and see what happens.

I use a Gibbons colour Key and there are others including Scotts. They are all different in that we all see colours differently and have different names for the colours.
What may be Bright Crimson in Gibbons may be Bright Carmine in Scotts.

And so on.

But practice and have fun with the colours.
It really can be fun.

Londonbus1....definitely Bright Scarlet....I think
And

Your whole family?
Cool....
btw.. you live in a Kibbutz? (sp)

Also, to add to londonbus1's excellent answer, for issues that you are more concerned about colour with than others, it is good to compare to a real stamp with a known colour side by side under the same lighting conditions.

Different lighting will give different results also.

So, if there were whole series of stamps it would be worth while getting damaged stamps just to compare colours with.

As londonbus says, it takes practice and experience. Comparing a in-the-hand stamp to one on a computer screen can give the wrong result also. Works sometimes, but not always.

Look on ebay or Delcampe or somewhere online to see what others are calling the colour for that stamp is something I do sometimes. This will let you see that everyone scans stamps (or photographs) and adjust software settings to the degree that they think is right but makes you think it is one colour when it is another. If in doubt check somewhere else also.

Once in a while someone will have a small lot of colour shades listed and you can save the pic for your reference later.

Check stamp dealer's websites also. Check and recheck, as only real life in good light is the proper way to determine colour.

The unofficial by-line of the SCF ought to be, "there's no such thing as a stupid question..."
I often read threads where, not only do I not know the answer to the question, but perhaps I hadn't even thought to ask in the first place! Thanks for asking, Lubos!

Howdy

I have heard too that the best lighting is natural daylight. Articial lighting tends to throw one off. My experience anyway.

Bujutsu