What In The World Is This?

I could really use some of you Germany expert's help on this. I have a large number of stamps from the Allied occupied zones - the Building Series. I have a lot of each type, most with 11 perfs. and most pretty common. I have not yet checked them for errors. However, I have one stamp, a 4pf - Mi 74, that I cannot find in Scott's, Michel, or anywhere online. I am sure I am just not looking in the right place. the thing that makes it interesting to me is that it appears to be the wrong color. All of the variations listed in Scott's and Michel are indicated as having yellow-brown, brown-orange, or brown-ocher color. The one I have is pale green.

Or are my eyes deceiving me?



This photo was taken with an incandescent light bulb source. With white or CFL light, it looks much greener to me.

It appears, based on perfs and watermark to be Mi 74a WB or WF, except for the color.

Did the brown ink fade for some reason? When I look at it under a loupe, I don't detect any brown/orange at all.

Any ideas?

Just a dramatic color shift. Can't image how long it may have been set in the sun or exposed to some other element to provoke this.

For those interested, this is the regular color:



Get a load of the perfs! How can they be so perfect?

Weird thing is that it has been sitting in a box without seeing the light of day for about 40 years. I guess the exposure must have happened between 49' and 67'.

I do have some 10pf stamps that are originally yellow-green showing close to this color. Is it possible that someone used the wrong ink way back when and, as poor as they were after WW2, the post office just let it through?

data, if the wrong ink was used even for one sheet, I think we'd see record of it. That would be a 'nice' error!

Databanks, this a chemically altered, or sun-bleached stamp. There is no postal stationery of this value, so it can't be an altered and perfed cutout.

KGB, your stamp has me mystified. It looks like an imperforate stamp that has homemade perforations. It is not uncommon for there to be all kinds of perforation errors on the "buildings" series, but I've never seen different sized perforation holes on the same stamp. The bottom row, especially, is very strange on your stamp. The lopsided holes, and the one small hole (4th from the left) give this stamp a strange look. I don't know why anyone would want to perforate an imperforate variety, though. Also, Michel doesn't list the 4 pf. stamp as an imperforate variety.

I have tons of these brown 4pf stamps. The have very little value. It might be an interesting experiment to put one in the sun to see if I can replicate the effect.

The stamp suffers from "Box Syndrome" as whenever a stamp with similar qualities to one affected by sun or chemical is displayed on SCF it has nearly always been in a box for many years usually up to 30-40 years according to the person posting.
There is a school of thought that says that there are two possibilities i.e. the stamp may or may not be affected in a detrimental way and the only way to find out is by opening the box...quantum mechanics would indicate that the act of opening the box to see reduces the outcome to only one of those possibilities.

book, it is a strange stamp (and not mine.) I can't figure it out either. What struck me first was how someone must have trimmed each side of the stamp. I just don't get it.

Scotzm - why would you say that? You don't know me. I realize that this board is anonymous. But isn't that all the more reason to be respectful when posting in someone's thread?

I asked the community for help in identifying the stamp. KGB and Bookbndrbob gave their opinions, no doubt based on their extensive experience, which I neither refuted, nor questioned.

I am a little bit offended by your implication that I am either shady or stupid. A novice at philately, yes, but I don't deserve to be treated like some huckster trying to trick someone on ebay, which your implication via your explanation of "Box Syndrome" does quite well.

Furthermore, your strained analogy, clearly a reference to the Schoedinger's Cat thought experiment, has nothing to do with my question starting this thread. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, specifically the Uncertainty principle says that, if we use the Schroedinger's Cat as an analogy, that the stamp is both affected and not affected in a detrimental way, and that observation is what makes its state real. The SC thought experiment was Schroedinger's critique of this specific interpretation of quantum mechanics. However, it has nothing to do with the stamp in question.

So if you would like to show me how smart you are about stamp, perhaps you could do so by either plainly affirming KGB and Bob's opinion, or indicating where I might find more information about sun damage to stamps and or see examples.

"The stamp suffers from "Box Syndrome" as whenever a stamp with similar qualities to one affected by sun or chemical is displayed on SCF it has nearly always been in a box for many years usually up to 30-40 years according to the person posting."

This is observational not accusatory.

edit for spelling

It's not box syndrome ; what you have is Green Rust, the original brown pigment was probably Iron Carbonate, in contact with an hydroxide it has turn green, this is not due to long time storage in dark or light; it as been in contact at some time with an hydroxide


look here the color of iron carbonate, this is the color of the real stamp

66, that's cool! Are you a chemist?

I have great interest in pigments used in history of oil painting