Venezuela 70 Centavos Airmail Stamp - ?c125

Checked this stamp in my Scott's catalog. There is an earlier one with "security paper," but this doesn't appear to be on that kind of paper. Scott's says C125 was issued 1938-39. Clearly the post mark is 1934. Any thoughts?


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A photo is never as good as a scan to assess the paper, but this seems to miss the patterns of the 1932 Winchester Security Paper from 1932. It makes the cancel suspicious.

The cancel is similar to postmarks of the era.
Violet, single ring at top, double at bottom.

It is either a forgery, (cannot understand why) or perhaps the date slug was inserted in error?

I have a Postmark completely missing the date.

Winchester Security paper:

The Winchester security paper color can be even deeper than that shown by rod, ranging to a pale gray blue. Note that Scott calls C22's color "rose" when it's red to me, same as my copy. Meanwhile C125 is listed as rose carmine. The OP's stamp look like red to me, but the flash lighting and its beaten up condition is enough to make color ID iffy.

Because of some mottling apparent in the paper of the OP's stamp, this could be C22 with the paper color bleached out, which can happen. Why it didn't affect the cancel is a question but obviously something has damaged the stamp ink. That ink loss is what Winchester paper is supposed to do when some alteration is attempted. A UV lamp might prove or disprove this idea.

Otherwise, it's just an erroneous cancel. Stuff happens.

Interesting, had not considered that.

I think you have a good point.

I find it difficult to be sure because of the lighting of the photograph. It, however, does appear the left side of the stamp is much paler than the right side. It, also, appears the ink to the right has run colouring the margin slightly red. That would coincide with the explanation.

Thanks all for replies. I scanned the stamp to give a better image.

The only things that seem exceptional, but entirely possible, are...

Socked on the nose perfectly
Clear precise Postmark image
No slug mark after the year date

Most, if not all, of mine are part strikes, in violet ink, that is smudgey, and almost ilegible, most have marks after the year date.
Of course, this may change with the state of issue in Venezuela.
I am unable to read the state on yours.

You're not going to like this, but I think the bottom arc says "GUASIPATI".

Not only did I NOT "not like this" I am impressed, I'll take that.
GUASIPATI (beautiful land) with poor soil, but the richest gold mines in the world

A flag with the National Colours of Australia (Green and Gold)

I therefore award you 1 chocolate coated sultana for your work.

I wasn't going to post this because I didn't think it's relevant, but here goes...

1946 Sanabria says that there were four printings of this series, and the fourth printing was on yellow-gray paper. They list numbers for the fourth printing, and they don't list a number for the 70c.

So, I assume yellow-gray paper isn't yellow-gray Winchester paper (but I don't know that), and I assume it doesn't apply to the 70c, in any event, but I post it here for what it's worth. I don't have a lot of references for this series, and neither Yvert nor Scott mention a yellow-gray fourth printing.

If anyone has more information to shed light on this...I'll be seeing a guy with a significant South America collection next month, and I'll ask what he knows. If I remember.

I have the Catalogue....

Catalogo de las estampillas de Venezuela
Asofilica
Autor : Carlos Romero 2021 2022
ISBN 978-980-18-2159-5

No mention of a fourth printing

Mapa de Venezuela
1930 first emision no 70c
1932 2nd emision waterlow sec 70c rose carmine
1938-1939 tercera emision (3rd) 70c carmine

1930 set (no 70c) all punctured "GN"

I'd like to see the scan of the Sanabria page.

I'm home now, but I can make that happen tomorrow. (Today, for you. Or maybe yesterday. I can never tell.) All four printings were listed under the first issue, not the subsequent issues.

Thanks, (yesterday) Kiribati get up first, to heat the coffee and depress the toaster.

subject to that image, I may email the author to get his take.
Pls advise date of Sanabria version.

After looking at my collection of these Winchester paper Airmails and Comparing the two pics posted here, I tend to agree that the colors are simply bleached out. Look at the color around the denominations to see how much the color is missing. Color changes due to environmental issues are often the most common cause of these types of oddities, yes? Occam's razor.

Here are a few from my collection showing some of the variation in the intensity of the blue. The red 70 Centimos seemed to have more faded copies in my stockbook than the other colors, but that might be a fluke.



Apologies for pic - I no longer use a PC or scanner, only my iPad.

Here is the listing from the 1946 Sanabria:




Sorry that I can't post scans. It's an 1,100-page volume with a tight binding, and it was all that I could do to get in there with a camera.

Realizing that it looks like it might not apply to this 70c, nevertheless, does anyone have any information about this mention of a fourth printing of several values on yellow gray paper?

Regarding the OP, I'm in the "faded out" camp, too.