United Nations Airmail C3A - Prussian Blue

The so-called "Prussian blue" error occurred during the 5th print run. It was an ink mixing error in which the "vermilion red" color was omitted from the mix.

Sorry, I do not the size of the print run. But it is not a very small number, which is why the stamp catalogs for less than US$100. The total printing was 3,250,000.

But to get a ballpark idea plus/minus 1 order of magnitude, the 1955 souvenir sheet had a total printing of 250,000 and catalogs for US$100.

My guess is that the Prussian blue color error quantity is that order of magnitude or one BELOW that.

k

This is supposedly an image of the Prussian blue, but on your monitor, it may look completely different. In the 2013 U.S. Specialized, it catalogs $65 Mint N.H.

doug2222, the picture looks reasonably close to the Prussian blue variety on my monitor, even to my inaccurate eyes.

I think Barhata has already received the needed information elsewhere, but I will post a summary of the info here for anyone who is interested. I want to credit Arno for providing a good part of the numbers/info.



600,000



5th printing, ~Jun 1957 or earlier (I don't have exact info on dates of print run)



Original (1st) printing normal (1951, 1 million). Vermilion red left out of ink mix for 5th printing (~1957, 600,000). The entire print run was affected.



Information from Michel UN Specialized, Scott US Specialized, and some stamp expo report that had a presentation on UN stamps (I think it was either a UNPA sponsored event, or printed in a UNPA literature -- sorry, I don't remember).

OK, after some searching I was able to locate online my 3rd reference. It was ARIPEX 2005 (not a UNPA sponsored event, sorry for my bad memory).

In this link, see the 2nd page, 3rd column, 2nd paragraph:

http://www.malariastamps.com/exhibi...PEX_2005.pdf

I have done quite a bit of research on the c3a UN Prussian blue stamp.

There were 7 printings of the C3. The C3a comes from the 5th printing. The 5th printing consisted of 600,000 stamps. Of those, only 350,000 were sold. The others were destroyed.

During the initial color check of the printing run of the 5th printing, the ink was found to be far different from the intended color and this was corrected. About 100 sheets or 5000 stamps by mistake got included in the shipment and were placed on sale without notice by the UNPA. The color is quite distinctive, since the vermilion is missing.

This makes the number of C3a Prussian Blue stamps sold to be 100 sheets or 5000 stamps.

The information for the above was gotten from "A Handbook On The First Issue Of United Nations Postage Stamps 1951-1966" by Robert G. Kvarnes and Ramond Goodey, two of the foremost experts on the first issue of UN stamps.

Thanks for the additional information, ahall! And welcome to Stamp Community Forum.

You are correct, only the initial part of the 5th printing was affected. That information was corrected in the thread on another board. I had completely forgotten about this thread, so I didn't correct it here. So thanks for the additional info and the correction.