(Missing) Pink Back And Other Hints To Identify The 2c Rose Carmine Color?

Hello,

for some time now I have no idea how to identify the rose carmine color of the 1899 2c Washington. I guess everybody here has seen hundreds of this design and always wondered if there was any rose carmine, so do I.

I found two interesting threads here at SCF:

https://goscf.com/t/23278
(stallzer: did you send your stamp for certification it looks like rose carmine?)

https://goscf.com/t/55765#487699
(wtcrowe: thank you for your scan, as always your color examples are very helpful)

Siegel shows some rose carmine stamps.
279Bc
https://siegelauctions.com/lot_grd....emailflag=on

267c
https://siegelauctions.com/lot_grd....emailflag=on

Especially the 279Bc examples at Siegel are displayed very different. If I compare the 267c at Siegel and wtcrowes's example at the left I would guess that the correct 279Bc color shade at Siegel is from sale 1062.

Could anyone who owns a 279Bc (or, less likely 267c) give some information about:
- how is your stamp color in comparison to the mentioned Siegel stamps 267c and 279Bc (sale 1062), does it match?
- I wonder if a pink back, or better a missing pink back could help identify this stamp? My opinion would be that a rose carmine stamp would not show a pink back in opposite to the pink shades.

thank you.

(yes, I know it's difficult to see colors on the monitor, but with a good color management and a good monitor, the RGB display is very accurate)

(no, I don't have any example which I could show here, I just sit before a huge mountain of those 2c stamps)

It is likely that Sigel Images intended for publication were converted from CMYK to RGB for the web. On my monitor I prefer sale 972 lot 3276




over sale 1062 lot 462:



To my eye, the true rose carmine shade appears to be bluish compared to the normal red shades, pink, vermilion or the paler carmine shade.

I would like to see an example of the 279Bi brown orange shade. Siegel doesn't have any in their search results. Is anyone up for the challenge?

Thank you very much - yes, my impression is as well, that the rose carmine has a bluish cast. From your both images, the sale 972 really looks very pink already, the one below a bit more carmine. Of course - as I said - it's not a 100% solution to view colors on the monitor, but the Siegel images and some images at SCF (like yours now) really helped me a lot understanding the nature of some stamp colors. I am pretty sure that one will notice the specific shade when finding a rose carmine.

I found one 279Bc at the PF database which shows quite similar the color you chose:
http://pfsearch.org/pfsearch/images/500/500082.jpg

A 279Bi was sold here:
https://siegelauctions.com/lot_grd..../2020&symbol[]=All&lotclass=All&syear=All&pfoper=All&pseoper=All&pfgrade=&psegrade=&gandor=or&keyword=&catselect=eq&pscolumn=default&pssortby=&sortord=DESC&photo=&calledfrom=lkp

I guess a 279Bc should be in the 3th row and a 279Bi in the 4th row?
I will look at my stamp and post a scan if I find a possible 279Bi or 279Bc.

As the rose carmine really seems to have some pinkish in it, I still wonder if the back of the stamp can help identifying? As many pink 279 stamps have a pink back, would you say the rose carmine shade also would have?

I am a bit suspect of Siegel image colors, they appear to me to be doing a fair amount of post-scan image processing.
Don

I have looked for a lot of stamps in the Siegel database, and it seems they really made it better the last years in color management. I compared many of my stamps and the Siegel stamps and the colors were very accurate. The PF database does show the colors of the same stamp very differently.

I agree that there has been an evolution. I always assumed that their post image processing is about practical things like smaller file sizes and is not towards developing a color reference for collectors.
Don

Sorry I missed this one. No, I did not send it in for certification. Guess I never thought it to be worth it.

Very difficult process to realize.

thank you stallzer. maybe you should try and let us know :).
in my last link for the 279Bi I didn't look at all at the triangles... of course the rose carmine stamps have to be type III and IV. And in this scan by Siegel I don't really find a match for 279Bc or 279Bi.

anybody who has a 279Bc (or 267c) could look at the back if there is pink back?

While looking at this thread I also remembered that the scan I provided in the above link was scanned with my old HP 3 in 1. I re-scanned the stamp on my Canon Lide and there is a noticeable difference.

279XX? from above thread





Here is one I believe to be the basic red





Here are my scanner settings

in your new scan I don't see any bluish anymore as in the old link I gave above. that shows how important the scanner is and how the system works with the file. the best is "quality control" by your trained eye by comparing the stamp in daylight or standardized light with the stamp on your calibrated monitor. If I would own your stamp and it would look like the scan you gave today I would not have thought of the rose carmine color. But maybe others with 279Bc experience have another opinion.

stallzer,
You might want to consider lowering the input 48-bit color to 24-bit color. While technically having more bits per channel is better (the computer can generate more color shades) you cannot see the difference. The reason you cannot see the difference is that your monitor can only display 24-bit color. It is like playing a Blue Ray movie on a standard definition TV. Additionally, the only common 48-bit file format is TIFF. If you save the file in another format like JPG it will convert the color channels back to 24-bit anyway.
Don

Unfortunately my color options are color or color 48 bit so I don't know what the color option settings are.

Here is the stamp using just the color option





Color 48 bit

It's up to you to decide which of the images shows the best your real stamp. Those two are very similar (one on the top a bit more bluish), but do they show more or less your real stamp? Or the old scan?

Hard to say. My lighting in my stamp room (Computer room in basement) is beyond bad. Being it's March in Minnesota we really haven't had much sun in 5 months so looking at it in this poor light makes me depend on a scanner for seeing stamps well. In any case even if it was a 279Bc the cost of the cert would probably never pay for itself. The stamp has most original gum but portions are disturbed so I'd probably guess from what I've seen is it's a $20 - $30 retail item so a cert would not garnish more money with an accompanying one. I'll probably leave it filed as a 279.

I just found two threads here at SCF.

here is another example of 279Bc and also a scan of the Scott color guide.
https://goscf.com/t/27195&whichpage=2#233467

here an example by Russ, but I think this is too much bluish?
https://goscf.com/t/11418#103371


cfrphoto: here is an orange brown - compared to the Scott color guide, this could be a match, although it's not mentioned where the picture comes from. at least it's not the 279Bi I mentioned abot that was sold at Siegel.
https://goscf.com/t/36916#315357