Red US First Issue Revenue Stamps And Types Of Paper

Here is a direct quote from Christopher West's The Revenue Stamps of the United States: "From about 1869 rosy shades of red are met with on the 1c, 5c, 20c, and 25c values,while on the $1, $2, and $5 stamps the shades run more toward orange and vermilion and the thicker and experimental silk papers are always, or nearly always, found with these shades."

Here is my question -- does this mean that all values (1c, 5c, 20c, 25c, $1, $2, and $5) of the thicker and experimental silk papers are found in these shades of orange and vermilion?

It means the thicker and experimental silk papers are always, or nearly always very bright red on the lower values and are nearly always orange and vermilion on the higher values. The silk paper shows up in 1870. Imperf and part perf red stamps are always a fairly pale very dull red. They are on thin paper, but not as thin as the blue stamps, the paper of which is so thin that the image and impression are almost always visible from the reverse.

Thanks revcollector - this is very helpful.

Additionally, on the violet inks (R20, R22, R51, R52, R80, R84) the later printings are darker and more saturated in color than earlier printings, similar to what one sees with the $1 denominations. On the green inks, the darkest shades are usually found on earlier printings.

As time went on, there was a concerted effort by Butler & Carpenter to make the light stamps darker and the dark stamps lighter in an effort to combat re-cleaning and reuse. In some cases these were major shade or even color changes (for example the 4 cent, 30 cent, and $2.50 stamps underwent major color changes).

You certainly know your "stuff" - thanks.

I have to add there is a 2cent R15 that is red not orange. I purchased a Bedford study lot of Plate 2B from the George Turner Auction because of the hundreds of different double transfers. Plate 2B was printed in three states and the intermediate state, unlike the other two printed in orange, was printed in red and all appeared to be wet printings.

So what is the difference between wet printings and dry printings, and how do you tell the difference?

Sorry, I made a mistake in the last post. The second state of plate 2B of R15 was that they appeared to be of the wet print variety not the dry print variety.

As I wrote before. ALL first issue revenues would fall under what would be called "wet" printings in relation to the 20th century use of the term for printing method.
The terms wet and dry when used on first issue revenues refers to the paper either being "too wet" or "too dry" for a proper printing. Too wet produces muddy prints and too dry produces prints showing ink loss.