What's Up With Stamp #2730? Help!

Hey Experts,

I got these 3 #2730 from 2014.
But the one in the middle seems to have a different color for the rose...

a) is this just my imagination?
b) or are they really different stamps? (with a different number!?)
c) other...?

Thanks for the assistance!
RiTz21

It is very likely that this is just an inking variation. In other words, if you had 100 of these and laid them out for comparison, you would find a range of shades for the roses. The saturation/thickness of the ink varies quite a bit on large print runs, so sheets printed at one time might appear to be darker or lighter than sheets printed hours or days later.

Quite a variation of color.

Even the "green" in the back of the flower appears more pale than the 2 others.
René

When I see a used stamp, I think color changeling.
Don

They watered certain sheets less to see what effect it would have on the flower's growth...

RiTz21...bookbndrbob has a point.

When I was a printer and the ink in the reservoir was used up and the ink had to be replenished, it is at the expertise of the printer to remix the ink..There is a "close enough" attitude because of print time tables...Mixing ink is not a 100% accuracy process.

Robert

Thanks Wert. To reinforce my previous post about RiTz21's stamp, I will show another modern stamp which I have in abundance (many hundreds). In looking for plate flaws with a binocular microscope, I noticed differences in these "lighthouse" stamps and took out 3 of the most striking differences.

On one stamp, the red color appears orange because of a slight ink starvation. The red halftone dots actually run through the sky and most of the other printed parts of the stamp. So, a small change in printing or ink formulation can make a very visible change in the appearance of modern stamps. Of course, sunlight or uv light exposure will also alter appearance.

On some stamps, one of the plates (blue, or black) is worn or dirty, so a little "snowstorm" of blue or black dots peppered the background. This can only be seen under magnification. Over half a billion of these stamps were printed, so quality control may not have been the best.

The Brother scanner did not want to recognize the difference in red colors, so I photographed the close up with my iPhone.

Are these color variations also seen in mint stamps?
Don

Don, I can't tell you about the German lighthouse stamps. These are self-adhesive coil stamps. I don't normally collect mint self-adhesive stamps from any country.

I think I see your point, though. Although a person could expose any stamp to light to create a variety, if you had two rolls of unused coil stamps on their foil backing with very noticeable differences in color between the two rolls, then this would be much stronger evidence that there was not exacting care in their production.

With these particular stamps, I certainly wasn't expecting to see any differences...even with the massive quantity in which they were produced.

I am still inclined to believe that there are color variations on modern definitive stamps, especially where there are extended print runs with halftone screens.

RiTz21....Here is a colour analyze product of you 2 stamps....Your top stamp is blue/bluish and the bottom one is bluish going towards the gray scale.





Don brings up a good question..Envelope, stationary and light as Don has stated at times can affect the chemical make up of colours..I will start looking at mint stamps to see if there is colour oddities

Robert