Help Identifying An Unusual Early Netherlands Stamp

I recently received this strange stamp in a large lot of early Netherlands stamps:




This is a 25 cent A5 William III that is gray violet (the same color as the 1 gulden stamp in this set), rather than dull violet, which, according to the Scott catalog, was the only color in which this stamp was issued.

I know that the proofs for the A5 emission have a 25 cent face value, and that there is a gray violet proof. However, all of the A5 proofs I've ever seen have been A) imperforated, and B) unused, whereas this stamp is perforated and has a puntstempel type cancel, indicating that it was used for postage. Moreover, aside from the ultramarine variant of the 5 cent stamp from this series, I've never even seen an alternatively colored A5 that wasn't a proof.

What could this thing be? An unusual proof? An error? A forgery?

Thanks for your help!

There are numerous color shades of this issue that are not listed in Scott. The NVPH catalog lists: violet, dark violet, lilac, gray lilac, gray violet, and "matviolet" (not sure what the English translation is, hopefully someone who knows Dutch can chime in).

Your stamp is toned, so the color shade identification will be a little tricky. Can you measure the perfs, as there are several perf variations for this stamp and that may help narrow down the color shade and year range of the printing.

k

Here are some of the shades KHJ is talking about------

"Matviolet". The translation would be "dull violet".
And khj is correct with his answer; there are oodles of different shades on this issue!

Peter

The unstated moral of this story is that if you are serious about collecting specializing in stamps of a particular country, buy the appropriate catalog specialized for that purpose. Scott is specialized for US stamps, but has only general value for everything else.

Very interesting! Thanks! I've also been puzzling over some alternatively colored type Veths which I bet are listed in the NVPH catalog as well.

For the record, the perforation appears to be 13.

Thanks for the translation, Peter!!

Great pics, floortrader!!

Matviolet and dull violet are indeed the same thing. :)