Color Guide Key Recommendations

Just wondering what you all use as color guides? I use an old Stanley Gibbons color key but I often find it lacking.

I collect Germany, so I use a Michel color guide.

When I was learning all about stamps, and I still am in the learning process, I have always been told by those who guided me in the hobby, that there is not any one colour guide that is 100% accurate.

I tend to believe this too because the reasoning behind my statement is that everyone in the hobby will view colours differently. Blame it on the colour spectrum <G>

Having said this, I do believe that the old Gibbons colour guide that used facsimile stamps was apparently the closest to any on the market (?)

Chimo

Bujutsu

I use the SG one and it's been ok for me so far.

I wonder how colourblind people get on with stamp collecting.

As you might infer from PostmasterGS' post, what you collect (what you need to identify) will dictate the best color guide for you. There is no one-size-fits-all answer.

They run the gamut from inexpensive to unbelievably expensive. Subway had Michel's for $20 for the longest time; last time I looked it was back to $80.

Serious collectors of U.S. might turn to the multi-volume Encyclopedia of the Colors of United States Postage Stamps, but a full set could run well over $1,000.

An option for less money is the Specialized Color Guides for US Stamps by Richard M. Morris, which you may be able to find for $50.

So, it depends...

to answer your question about colorblind people US Scott 279 is a menace and I cant tell you how many times I have run to mom, wife and children to help me. It is challenging and sometimes very frustrating, but it doesn't stop me from loving my collection.

I'd like to give you my own point of view concerning the tough issue of colour. Here, in Russia, getting colour guides is even a greater problem. Buying from abroad makes it more expensive due to shipping costs of anything with weight. So what I do, I get kiloware (say Machins, where it's greatest colour range), sort out stamps with colour tints and varieties (even faulty might work as patterns) thus building my own colour table on the ground of unquestionable ones first (one type only for denomination), after that - others. This can be applied to most other stamps according to the same catalogue.

I like that approach, there aren't a great deal of stamps
that demand colour identification in what I collect
apart from the Australian King George sidefaces,
and a I find an A4 page of halfpenny greens for example,
one can detect the faintest shade variations.