US Scott R22 - 2 Different Colors, 1 Listed In Catalog

Spending my Labor Day catching up on some revenues and came across this 4c R22. My Scott specialty album only lists purple as the color for this issue. So I checked the Specialized catalog and see the same thing. The stamp on the right appears slate.

Is this just a changeling?

thx

To begin with, the purple shades are very volatile and can fade to several different shades after 145-150 years under unknown conditions. Plus these stamps were often used on items such as medicines and matches which had a lot of chemical compounds which might (and often did) affect the shades as well. Both of these appear to have this as a possible cause of their current shades.
And Scott has never been very accurate about shades of first issue revenues. There is a shade chart in the back of the Boston Book of 1898 which lists many more shades than Scott ever has.

Following up on what revcollector said, the Boston Revenue Book lists 11 shades for R22c. Here are a few more:

The dates give a good idea of when each shade was being used. There were a number of deliberate shade changes across the board for first issues.

Cool - thanks guys

Interesting information here.

By any chance can someone confirm that the below book is the one you are referencing...

The Boston Revenue book (Hardcover – 1979) by Boston Philatelic Society (Author)

Regards,
Stampalotapus

If so this book is available at Amazon...

http://www.amazon.com/Boston-revenu...p/0880001143

Regards,
Stampalotapus

Stampalotapus, that's 1979 edition of the book, which was originally published in 1899 as "An Historic Reference List of the Revenue Stamps of the United States." The authors were George Toppan, Hiram Deats, and Alexander Holland. Richard Friedberg has a copy listed for $35.00. http://www.friedbergstamps.com/id19.html

Thank you rustyc.

I was also able to locate a pdf of the original online...

http://www.revenue-collector.com/BostonBook.pdf

Regards,
Stampalotapus

Ah yes, Stampalotapus. I didn't realize that revenuecollector's web site (a treasure trove of information on first issue revenues) had a PDF of the Boston Revenue Book.

Thanks for the link I love free books online

I have the Google version as well. Spent some major time reading it too. Lots of great info.

It's a great book and essential reading for 19th century revenues; once in a great while there are things that have been found to not be 100% accurate such as some quantities issued (the $5 proprietaries come to mind).

The "violet" shades are all sorts of fun. If you want to see a wide array of the colors that can be found, the following links show all of the examples of specific stamps on my website:

R22c:

http://www.revenue-collector.com/cg...t&Scott=R22c

R51a:

http://www.revenue-collector.com/cg...t&Scott=R51a

R52c:

http://www.revenue-collector.com/cg...t&Scott=R52c

R80c:

http://www.revenue-collector.com/cg...t&Scott=R80c

R84c:

http://www.revenue-collector.com/cg...t&Scott=R84c