Questions About Colored Cancels

Hello,

as I always keep a classic stamp with another cancel color than black when I find one, I can imagine building up a little nice collection out of it. This only for stamps of the banknote era and before.

I have not understood yet:
The Scott Specialized gives information which colors you can find on the stamp, in the section "Cancellations" at the end of the stamp entry. Is this a complete list, so if a color is not mentioned: does it not exist? Or is it just not interesting (too common)?

I ask this as I have seen regularly some red/orange cancellations at 5c or 30c banknote stamps and those colors are not listed as I now found out (I don't own these stamps, but have seen some).

My second question is about certification at PF: I guess the cancel colors were not "standardized" like stamp colors, so how can the PF decide which color it is if they don't have another which is exactly the same to compare to? I think this is very difficult for some colors like blue vs. blue-green or orange vs. red-orange.

The PF has a very large reference collection, plus everyone working there has been active in the hobby for decades and they all know all the major collections that they can reference when needed (in just about any US area, not just shades).

If Scott does not list a color it does not mean that it does not exist. It may mean that a particular color does not occur enough to give a proper pricing. Most "red orange" cancels are just degraded red cancels. The best way to look at the cancel color is to look at the pigment used to make the ink. Many "green" cancels are nothing more than oily blue cancels or they are on an amber or yellow envelope. If you look at the pigment in the cancel at 20x or higher and only see blue pigment, then it is not a green cancel. You are correct that color identification can be subjective. Additionally, the pigments used to manufacture colors varies from decade to decade.

And it should be remembered that what PF expresses, in a certificate, is an opinion, not a statement of fact, exactly because color and shade issues are not the subject of objective truths.

Thank you all, that helped me. Yes, I also thought that there must be some kind of reference collection of colored cancels, but that this is much more difficult than for stamps, as each cancel color in each city or region might be different. But you're right, at the end it's always about color and color definition - today.

And yes, the red and the red orange may be hard to distinguish as well as the blue vs. green, but I will have a closer look under magnification in the future.

Of course it would be helpful if there was some collection of colored cancels you can view online to get more experience. I already found many examples at Siegels Research function (although their image quality and color management is not equally good for all auction photos). For sure this is another very interesting area of US stamps (and I also got already into fancy cancels a lot...). Thank you again.

Hi. Just be careful of fake cancels. I have no idea how advanced you are as a collector, but thought I would share this. I have this stamp I bought off ebay several years ago and just recently posted on this site. I found out this is a fake cancel. There is three lines by pen under the star. So just use caution when buying.
Robert

I've seen some very fake cancels on ebay lately... being sold by a person that should and probably does know the difference.

Can anyone tell me what this blue cancel is or might be?