Ever Get Lucky Like This????

Once in a life time find .....

srailkb, thanks for the definition! I guess that you can tell that I do not instant message and hardly email!

Sorry Floortrader, could you elaborate, is it a 233a? If so, how did you acquire? Have you had it certified, or am I on the wrong track ?

floortrader.....of all the quality posts you have made here,
you know that the item shown is not a #233a.

or was it a once in a life time find because its an ebay Columbian with nice centering?

Its a real 233a .The color is stronger when viewing the stamp than what shows thru a scanner and screen .

The color might be stronger but it does not appear to be blue, just a darker ultramarine. Just compare it to a one cent Columbian, and the difference will become obvious.

Here is a Blue 233a that sold last month .

surprised people here never seen a real Blue 233a ......this one above with the tab was just sold at a major auction .

And here I was thinking that you meant that Columbus landing in America was a 'once in a lifetime find'! :)
Don

I agree with revcollector, very unlikely it's a 233a based on your scan (just dark ultra.) If you want to get everyone excited, post another scan with it sitting next to a few 1c Columbian stamps. That will be MUCH more helpful that comparing with other shades of the 4c...

Without a cert, and based on the color shown in your scan, I'd say 99.999% likely it's a known (common) shade of regular Scott 233, not the blue error.

WOW-------People here don't know how to read a Scott Catalog !! The comparsion to a One Cent Columbian is faulty , the one cent is DEEP BLUE ,almost a steel blue shade ,but the catalog says the 233a is Blue .......put up scans and show the stamps.Off to the Beach ,hope the sharks don't bite ,that's the sharks here not the ones at the Beach .

Thanks to Siegel Auctions for the scans.

233



233a (2 different examples)



Yours

floortrader, regardless of how Scott names colors (don't get me started on that...) spectrographic analysis shows that the wrong ink used for the 4c "blue" error has the same components as the 1c Columbian ink. It's pretty obvious what happened to create that error.

...and even if you weren't aware of the spectral fingerprint similarities, anyone who's seen/handled genuine 233a's (I've probably seen a dozen) knows that genuine 233a shades are a "very close match" to a subset of 1c Columbian shades (the dark ultra "wannabes" never come close - they always look "ultra" in comparison, as you can see in the group that Jenny2U posted above.)

Again, seeing that 4c scanned next to any group of 1c shades will immediately answer the question of whether it's got a shot or not. I'm sure you have a 1c Columbian or two sitting around somewhere, so why not just do it?

Sure here is a block of four of the 1 cent BLUE .