Munsell Chips In Color Guides (White, Scott)

Hello,

I think in the White's encyclopedia of Color for the US stamps the Munsell chips are named - is this true? I saw several scans of pages, but there was never included any Munsell information below the stamp. Is there perhaps a list of Scott numbers and corresponding Munsell numbers in the back of the book?

This would be great to see for some stamps, of course, like for Scott # 10, 11, 64, 65, 219D, 220, 267, 279B, as the "Scott specialized color guides" is also sold out and the average collector can't buy any of these guides. With the Munsell information this would be a good step.

(or is the Munsell chip information perhaps also given in the "Scott specialized color guides"?)

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this thread shouldn't become a general discussion about color management, monitors, RGB, CMYK, Pantone, fading of color swatches and so on, it has been discussed many times

a Munsell book for stamps would be very interesting and useful if such a thing existed, but I doubt it would be cheaper. I've used Munsell color book in archaeology to identify soil colors and those books are pushing around $200 these days.

The Munsell color notations are in an appendix after each volume in the White books. The numbers are given by position on the color plates. 2.5 YR 5/8 and 2.5 YR 4/8 are given for the first two #10 entries on plate I-3. Not meaningful to anyone without access to a Munsell book. I also wonder how useful it is for people who score average or below in the color test? https://munsell.com/faqs/what-does-...e-test-mean/ After all, for stamps, we are not looking at a solid block of color as on a chip but rather lines printed on a paper with some color itself.

thank you both. Great to hear that this appendix exists.
in genereal we find many wishes of people who would like to buy a White books or the (smaller) Scott color guide, both being out of print. Also, as time goes by, the books become older of course. This is not always resulting in becoming the color chips faded (if stored correctly), but sometimes. If we have the information of the color chips, this would be a very very useful information if published anywhere. I don't know how this works concerning copyright, so I don't ask to show them here in this thread. But perhaps somebody with some connection to White's publishing house or family could ask for the permission. Once the appendix for all stamps in White's book would be public, anybody could start building a new version of the color guide, just for the stamps he needs.

It's very easy to create vectorized stamp samples and fill the Munsell color (using RGB approaches or color palettes, several exist). So you don't look at solid blocks, but stamps in this color with all the details of the design.

This is also how works this very uselful site:
http://www.philhaha.de/pfennige31.html
(I don't have any connection to this site and don't know exactly how this was made, but he also used vectorized stamp sample for your information)

Here is an example of how Munsell is referenced in White's



Hal

P.S. My Munsell Eye Color Test Score was a 4 (Best =0, Worst = 1,600+).

Thank you, Hal. Very interesting to see that page. Of course, as the Scott numbers are not side by side with the Munsell codes, this is more difficult, so it would not be enough to see all the appendix pages just to pick any color you like. I looked at the Munsell color that hy-brasil have above, and it seems a good guess for the 3c 1851 stamp. Better in any case than the Pantone codes that PSE showed in their stamp guide book (just to mention: 3c pink color looks like Barbie pink).

What I really think is that all this Munsell information is at the moment completely lost and useless for the philatelic community as 1. nearly nobody owns a White book and 2. all the people who really own one don't use the Munsell appendix or even care or know anything about it. White made such an effort to find Munsell chips which would be fine with the stamp, and the work ended in an appendix which could be the real treasure of those books (as of course the fading of the chips will happen in some years in all books). So it could be a great project for anybody who owns a White book to create Scott-Munsell-RGB-correspondances.

PS: My score was zero when I made the test some months ago, but this is, of course, mainly depending on your monitor and your color management system.

Hi Stamperix,

Yes, and here's where the fun really begins. I've selected one Plate for you to see, Plate II-4, or the fourth one down, on the Munsell numbers page, Plate II-4 corresponds to the 1870-1877 U.S. Bank Note One Cent Issues (Sc # 134, 145, 156, 156b, 182, 182a, 206, 206a, and 212).





You can load the numbers shown into your color management system and see how they match to your material.

Personally, I don't like White's Encyclopedia, but it's the best that there is out there. Not only is it over-priced because of the size stock, the full page color bleed, the way it was printed, the stock it was printed on, the binder used, and more. I could have been produced and sold this book for far less money.

Also, I don't believe the colors are properly represented on many of the issues and while I understand hues since I worked with color my entire professional career, I don't believe the average collector grasps the differences in inking variation; this book doesn't begin to address the issue or help the average collector as it assumes the person using Whites' is an advanced specialist. On the positive side, today's computers greatly help the average collector understand and work with color.

On a personal note, I was surprised I scored as low as I did on the Munsell test as I do not have a color correct monitor and do not use a color management system. Couple this with being a senior means I'm super surprised my score was as low as it was -- actually more like very surprised.

As for U.S. Copyright Law, a Copyright normally lasts for the life of an author, plus 70 years. In some circumstances it may be more. White's was copyrighted (c)1981.

Hal

Stamperix,

The one thing I didn't address was the Munsell System. You are correct about use of the Munsell System, especially in the U.S. where the preferred color system is Pantone. I assumed White choose the Munsell System as it is a more universally recognized worldwide versus Pantone, especially in 1981, when this book was published.

Hal

thank you very much, Hal. I hope to find the time soon to compare the Munsell colors to my RGB approach and the real stamps (as well as a little bit to your scan of the blue 1c stamps).

Indeed I think many people have thought about creating a system of "stamps in a color fan". As said, PSE used Pantone, and some colors are helpful, but many are not. White used Munsell, but nearly nobody owns his books, and nobody elaborated his system into modern world. Chase used Ridgway's book, but only for very few stamps.

Of course there are many stamp color fans, like of SG or also Michel. But there is a whole color industry who really knows how to produce color chips (like Pantone, Munsell, HKS), so it would be the best to use one of them.

Hal, recall that at least the first 4 White books were sold by preorder. They did offer a sample color plate but there were still very few takers. The (I think) one print run of the first 4 volumes was, in the hundreds for complete sets. Cheapskate that I am, I didn't buy their optional binders and it was still around a couple hundred dollars, maybe somewhat less. With a run of that size, it was surprising to me then and now that it even got printed. You could have beat their price if the run were in the several thousands, I'm sure, but I'm thinking you would have needed to be able to sell some minimum in the low thousands, to break even.

Also all the distribution and advertising/publicity costs also fell on White, et al and that many experts contributed stamps and time. If you were well-known to that bunch, you would have had the material shown in the book available to you at that time; and it's certainly not complete. But if you didn't have the connections, how would you get their cooperation, and enough material for any book? Some contributors also did thorough press-proofing (standing as printed sheets come off the press and checking color and correcting as needed), which can add quite a bit to printing costs as you know.

I think the way to do it today would be via CD or electronic with color bars to sync monitors/get shades correct. How one would get the material is another thing.

I forgot: are there given the Munsell codes also in the Scott specialized color guide?
If yes, what would be for example the Munsell color for Scott 10? Then we could compare PSE, White and Scott (Morris).

I played a bit with the colors of White (Munsell, different RGB approaches) and PSE (Pantone). At the moment I think the Munsell code of White would not help a lot, as the are showing colors that are very different from the colors to which I would define the stamps. The orange brown of the 3c 1851 looks like plum in the Munsell codes. PSE's Pantone colors of the 3c 1851 look much more accurate. I think I will have a closer look at all their Pantone colors comparing to real stamps I have. I forgot a bit about them as some colors are completely funny, like the 3c 1857 Pink (as mentioned above). But many, if not most other colors seem ok, especially if I know now about the Munsell colors of White.

Last thing to check would still be if in the Morris/Scott color guide there are Munsell codes given?

As I still don't own a Morris/Pittsboro/Scott color guide, I still wonder: Are there Munsell codes given?

As color on paper (whether normally printed or on color chips) changes over time it would be useful to have the old color books like White and also Morris (that's why I ask) digitalized just with the color codes. If we have the list of color codes of those two, their work would be saved for the future.

The images on the page with the 1c Franklins suggests that even with the problem that color on computers varies from monitor to monitor, couldn't at least a basic level of color identification be possible by simply posting color differences on a website? If various colors of the more common color-different stamps were made available, most collectors would be benefitted. I still can't tell many reds and blues apart. The difference between "rose" red and other reds is a mystery. But on the Franklin page above, blue, slate blue, and ultramarine are very clearly different. I've seen other pages online with gradations in color that are very helpful. Why is there no single online color guide? Is there simply too much variance in colors online?

Additionally hard copy color references have a short life, Pantone recommends "replacing your guides every 12-18 months". Printing inks and paper change over time, a color guide printed and published years ago is no longer accurate.
Don