Need Help Identifying 30 Cent Hamilton

I think this is not an 1879 190. That is full black on yellowish-white soft paper. This paper appears to me quite white. When I hold it up to a light, Looking at the back, I can quite clearly see the front.

So is it a 165 from 1873? I think so. Is it grey enough to be Grey-Black?

The last possibility is a 154 from 1870. Black. I can fine no hint of a grill.

Thanks for the help.

Don

That is a #190. The fuzziness around the perfs says American Bank Note soft paper. You already noted "soft paper" -- that's an American Bank Note paper.

This color is full black. Scott uses a typical color for its major listings; there are shades in addition. The gray cast or thin ink film overall on the paper will throw off your eye. Used stamps get faded, too, even black.

Actually, the OP said that #190 is on soft paper but that he thinks his example is not. Even after more than 50 years of serious US collecting I still cannot get the hang of of the shade differences on the 30-cent large banknote.

I agree with hy-brasil - although the scan doesn't really have sufficient resolution, I'd still say there's a high probability it's a Scott 190. There are a number of fuzzy perfs with protruding fibers (lower left side and several places at right, for example). That "look" is not typically seen on anything but soft paper stamps. FWIW, the back also looks like a soft paper to me (the way it creased, the way the cancel stained, etc.)

Okay, I guess it is a 190. I do find the paper to be pretty white, not Yellowish-white. But the perfs are kind of fuzzy.

Thanks for the help, and thank you Dudley for letting me know I am not alone in having trouble with this stamp.

Don

ddreisba, don't focus on the color of the paper. After a century of sitting around (or a bath in bleach) the paper color can be pretty much anything. Examine some stamps that "have" to be American soft paper, like Scott 210, 213, etc. I suspect you'll see a lot more similarities with your 30c than you do with stamps that "have" to be something other than soft papers, e.g. Scott 65, 114, etc. Focus on the "mesh" of the paper when viewed from behind and held toward a strong light source.

That is correct. My apologies, Don and all. Looking at the back, it's soft paper to me, too. For the record, and to add to our confusion, there are some transitional period Americans where old stocks of Continental paper were used up. Don, if you hold it to the light again and readily see a mesh, it's soft paper for sure.



Looking at the computer monitor I should be using, it could be 190a, greenish black. But the Americans with even recent certs I've seen all have a bit of greenish tinge to my eye. The typical 165a National greenish black is greener and grayer (maybe more due to the paper used), but there are shades of that and there's probably close to or even full black shades out there. We're also looking here at a blowup which makes everything paler, like the black card behind the stamp.

Yes, it's often a judgement call when it comes to the range of shades for the different 30c. There are even experts who say that identifying shades and colors is irrelevant on used stamps since they can be faded. Not that that can't happen with mint stamps, but they feel that a mint stamp is much more likely to be in the color as printed.

Other points are the strong cast of ink color on the paper (typical American), and (I'll get killed for this) the large overall size of the stamp which I would call a jumbo. The latter probably comes more from the surviving population of stamps I've seen, where possible very large Continentals and Nationals seem to have been largely reperfed. Those issues in general seem to be favorites with reperfers. The (super) jumbo Americans seem to have been targets to be cut down to try to pass as imperfs with supposedly large enough margins. It may be that the sound centered jumbos, seemingly all Americans, survived because old, old collectors were after centered stamps rather than jumbos, and there were just more American stamps that were like that.

Just for info purposes, Scott took the varietal small letter "a" off the greenish blacks of 165 and 190 many years ago. I chased this down some years ago because I had a PF-certified 165a with an older cert and could not find it identified as such in the then-current Scott U.S. specialized. In all the Specialized I have since 1991, there is no 190a and the 165a designation is used for another purpose. I was recently given a 1927 Scott catalog (one volume for the whole world!) and it does list the greenish blacks as 165a and 190a.