Another Error Question, Scott #691 Missing Color

Another error question, is this missing yellow brown version rare, common? A quick internet search didn't produce an answer.

No known errors listed in Unitrade stamp catalog for this stamp.

Thanks Battlestamps. I will have to see if anyone has or knows of other examples.

It appears to me to be chemically altered.

I don't know jarnick. I bought a stamp album from a dealer and these two used stamps were hinged next to each other. The album only cost $25 US, and of course this issue used has no value. I do not know where the original owner found the stamp and it was not mounted like it had any value. Here is a scan of the back of the stamp. It has yellow paper stuck to it suggesting it was ripped from an envelope and never soaked. I also re-scanned the front.

What I'm finding difficult is "Canada" not being printed in a single color. It looks as though the lettering is designed to be overprinted with the missing color.

I think it was a multi pass printing process and it is left without the yellow brown color. It may not be valuable but I think it is a actual printing error. I am interested in everyone's opinion on it though.

I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough. My apologies; it's been a long day.

What I mean to say is that it is unlikely that "Canada" would have been printed in anything but one color. That the lettering is pockmarked, so to speak, hints at more than the stamp just missing a color.

EDIT: spelling

In my opinion, this is not a clour error or variety. Both Canada and 10 should be medium brown, not black, the area behind his head should be dark brown, and the cancellation looks faded out.

As there should be three brown colours nd there are none, the odds of all three missing during the printing cycle is extremely high.

I also think that this is due to chemical bleaching.

This is just me speculating. I would question if there is way to only remove a single color and leave the rest. I would also think if this was done it was before the stamp was mailed. I think it would be hard to imagine not only leaving certain colors while removing others but also leaving the cancel and the remainder of the envelope.

The removal of one colour and leaving the other colours and cancel intact is not only done, but not that difficult.

This stamp was printed by British American Bank Note Co. on its web-fed Goebel press. On the Goebel press, the stamps are printed on a large roll of paper, not individual sheets. The colours are printed using a combination of photogravure and engraving in one pass through the press. All the photogravure colours are printed first. This includes the tagging which is a photogravure "colour". The Goebel press includes a perforating unit that perforates the roll of paper and a guillotine unit and slitters that cut the roll into individual panes. Corgi Times, the newsletter of the BNAPS Elizabethan II Study Group, published a very detailed article on the Goebel press several years ago.

According to Library and Archives Canada, the stamp was printed using four colours (http://data4.collectionscanada.ca/n...=ITLV&p=1&u=http://www.collectionscanada.ca/archivianet/020117_e.html&r=1&f=S&SECT3=ITLV). Two of the photogravure colours are obvious: the blue background and the orange map. There was a third photogravure colour, light magenta, which is difficult to discern even with a good magnifying glass because it was used sparingly to accentuate the darker orange on the map. There was one engraved colour, dark brown, used to print the lines in the portrait, the cross-hatching to the right of the portrait, and all the lettering ("Canada", "10", and the place names on the map). The tagging is excluded from the colour count. Note that the map was printed using just two colours, orange and light magenta, and the orange predominated.

Looking at the scan of the stamp with the "missing colour", it is apparent that the colours are all there (except for the light magenta which is difficult to see even on a normal stamp). In particular, the orange colour which is used to render the map on the light blue background is on the "missing colour" stamp. What appears to have happened is that the orange was somehow turned to a greyish colour. The brown engraved colour appears to have changed as well, to a darker colour.

I believe the "missing colour" stamp is not an example of a missing colour. Rather, the stamp is an example of a colour changeling, probably produced as a result of exposure to external elements.

Take the good copy and put it on the window sill for a couple of days. If you end up with two "missing" color stamps then it's a changeling.