How To Read Stanley Gibbons UK Catalogue?

I would stop looking if I were you or you may find more colours to contend with.
That may sound confusing but it's true...and in the end you can make it more easy for yourself.
This is how it goes:
Royal Mail issue new Machins in a stated colour, their version of the colour.
For example, in 2007 they issued a Ruby-coloured £1 value to commemorate the 40th [Ruby] Anniversary of the Machin. Within days, Gibbons gave a new name to the colour of the stamp. I do not have a recent SG catalogue so if someone can chime in with the name...thanks. According to GB dealer Rushstamps, the colour for that £1 stamp is Magenta.
So even within the UK, a colour name cannot be agreed upon, not by dealers,catalogue makers or website owners.
And so Rik, you have an example to go with your Crimson or Dark Maroon or......

it's all the way one see's it, and in the terminology. If you look in a Scott Catalogue for the Machin colours you will become more confused......better not eh? !
What I find interesting is that Royal Mail can come up with a colour for THEIR products [and they issued colour blocks with the name on] and yet everyone else goes and changes it after their opinion.

Everyone has their own opinions as to colour. And so it is with stamps too.

You will get used to it, I promise, but stick to one list for colours it's better that way.

Londonbus1

Okay, so I can better write all my 1p stamps under the colour "crimson"?

Well, if you are always going to be using the Gibbon's catalogue, then yes. If you use other catalogues or online sources for your main info source then whatever they use.

As Londonbus says Scott has there own colours, SG has theirs, Michel and Yvert theirs, etc, etc.

If you are trading or selling or dealing with people who use different catalogues or sources then you will find they use whatever is determined to be most useful yo use for whatever country's stamps they are dealing with. Most of the time!

For GB Machin stamps I would choose Stanley Gibbons but sometimes people will nlt have access to this catalogue and so use whatever they have.

It is good to learn the different types of Machins and all the things that can change one Mavhin from one type to another like perforations or phosphor bands or paper, etc. Even if you don't intend to ever use those categories to categorize your collection, I think it is good to know of them.

Okay, I will use the codes from SG.
Many thanks, all.

If I have another question, I will ask here.

Hi everybody,
I stumbled incidentally over this post and found it pretty interesting as I have got quite a few Machins myself.
Thanks for the great links given by Puzzler and nigelc - very useful indeed. But there is one thing: is there a table to correlate color systems used by Scott and Gibbons or/and other leading catalogues, like Michel?

That is a good question, CollGStamps.
Maybe it exists?

In a word-no.

This is one of the great frustrations for many collections. There is seemingly no or little uniformity with regard to color names from catalog maker to catalog maker. And, frequently, even within a single catalog maker's product, the color names vary.

The fact is that the Royal Mail used a name for the color of its stamps. Stanley Gibbons then used what they saw fit, Scotts the same, Deegam strives for consistency but he is at variance with the RM, SG and Scotts. Don't really know Michel but suspect they are the same.

My suggestion is to try to find an example of a color that is not contestable within a series within the catalog and then use that as your standard within that catalog. And, then hope for the best.

-Larry

This is a nice page of Machins ordered by value - http://myplace.frontier.com/~ktk.lange/395Machins/
As you can see just on a very basic level it is confusing.
I can recommend the free basic album pages on the adminware.ca site mentioned earlier.

And of course the Machin thread here - https://goscf.com/t/10785

Do you think there is a real reason for such - I would not dare use the word 'deliberate' - discrepancy in colour names. or is it merely a convenient tradition?

Is there a clearly defined standard for what is Maroon and Crimson?
These shades are also only as good as the printing which varies from printer to printer too.
As mentioned I would get too involved with actual names of colours just get to know what is what.
They ones used for various values are not normally similar.