Institute For Analytical Philately

The Institute for Analytical Philately is rarely mentioned here on SCF, and I would like to take this opportunity to raise their profile a bit.

http://analyticalphilately.org/

http://analyticalphilately.org/wp-c...ober2014.pdf current newsletter

When we discuss 'moving our hobby into the 21st Century', we mostly discuss internet tools, Killer Apps, and the like.

How about we add some hard science?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Unusually, I am at an almost complete loss for words. XRF analysis of inks is impressive stuff. Should be fine for fingerprinting the organic compounds. Good forensics. I am intrigued about how they determined the exact number of Labuan inverted frames. Sadly we aren't let into that secret. My 10x hand lens hangs it's inadequate head in shame.

LOL

xrf onlty tells you what elements are present, not their chemistry (how they are joined/arranged into what compounds), so not that useful for organics

Oops. Unbridgeable gap between brain and fingers. I know XRF is in organics but sometimes the neurons just aren't at their sharpest.

Organics do not live by carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen alone.

For example, XRF of indigo might show those two nitrogens clearly enough to distinguish one blue dye from another.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_dye

Emphasis on the 'might'.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I'm afraid you don't understand how XRF works/what it tells you.

Ikey, I had never heard of this organization. Thank you for bringing attention to it.

Great stuff Ikey. And it's in WMU!! Go Broncos!

but amount does not translate into how the atoms in the compound are arranged and in organics, you can have the same elements arranged differently and it makes a completely different compound, which can have a completely different color.

Yes, which is why I wrote:




To expand that thought, the 2-nitrogen signal is different than the 0-nitrogen signal, the 1-nitrogen signal, the 3-nitrogen signal, the 4-nitrogen signal ... thus, perhaps, allow you to reliably distinguish 2-nitrogen indigo from blue dyes with 0-1-3-4-etc nitrogens.

The real limitation on XRF-for-philately, as it is for so many things, is sample preparation.

For example, how to separate the ink/dye from the paper fibers, or to reliably subtract the XRF signal of the paper fibers so as to only be looking at the XRF signal of the ink/dye?

The easiest design-around would be to look for an element that is only present in the ink/dye, and would 'never' (sic) be present in the paper fiber; an example of that might be a heavy metal which, if more prevalent in one ink/dye than another, and blessedly rare in paper, would allow you to reliably distinguish one ink/dye from another.

Sadly, as you would quickly learn, preparations of inks/dyes were not deliciously precise; boiling leaves or insects or animal bits (professionally known as a water extraction) was supplemented & refined as time went on, but a 19th century bottle of indigo is not going to be a late 20th century bottle of reagent grade indigo.

Great puzzles to be solved well before you get to solving the philatelic puzzles.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Bumping this up as the 2020 symposium has been announced with the following call for papers.

Cool!

I can definitely say that there are some very talented people behind this, and they have done some very impressive work so far.

Analytical chemistry and physics in laboratories have NOTHING to do with Philately. Should they apply it to paintings they wouldn't be able to tell an Karel Appel from a Willem de Kooning!!!