#65 Color Differences

Can anyone tell/show me the difference between 'rose', 'pink', and 'rose pink'when applied to SC65? Is there a sure way to differentiate between the 3?

Thanks!
Bob

yes, there is, sort of. Have them certified

Peter

Ray's nice thread on this: https://goscf.com/t/26411

true pink is cotton candy pink. If a stamp is worn at all you can pretty much discount pink. If you find/purchase a pink, then rose pink is somewhere between.

Not well on a computer monitor. Go to the "search" function top right under login/logout. Under google custom forum search type in "sc 65 color". There are 911 listings/answers.

If you pick up enough #65s (and it's not hard to accumulate a bunch) you can "sort" them by color, and some of the shade categories will emerge naturally from simply doing that.

Obviously, you'll probably only find the common shades, and if you do get any rarer shades, there will be only one or two: but the key thing is that the rare shades will look different than the groups of shades you've collected in quantity.

I find it's difficult to develop an eye for shades of any stamp issue, until you've seen a bunch of copies in person. They look different in a photograph or on a computer screen. That is certainly one of the more frustrating aspects of the hobby.

These stamps were printed in great quantity over a period of several years during the Civil War. The war made it more difficult to secure steady supplies of ink of the same quality and color, which is why this stamp occurs in so many different shades.

Hey Tx-- thanks for the kudos...and coming from a philatelic expert such as yourself, made my day!

Codehappy-- Just my opinion, but I would only add to your post that if you're going to identify the different shades/hues/colors of the 3c 1861, you not only want to collect a lot of them, but it should be on covers that are year-dated. Since the different shades are all associated with blocks of time (for instance, a lot of lake shades are from 1864), it really helps to nail the actual name of the shade/hue/color down if you have a range from specific periods of time. And as you said, it's not difficult to find them. A little tougher for finding the year dated covers, but docketing and enclosures can help.

RGill-- Best bet if you're looking for the pinks, is to look for covers dated 1861. Anything later than that, it's probably not pink. And there are enough examples to purchase on ebay or wherever, at non-exorbitant prices (maybe even seconds) if you're wanting to build a reference collection. I have several that I take to every show with me to compare with anything I might find-- and enough of the locals and dealers I'll see know what I collect, so I get questions from time to time to help them ID the pinks.

Hope this is helpful, Ray

First, the disclaimers:

1 - CALIBRATED MONITORS AND SCANNERS ARE REQUIRED TO COMPARE COLORS ON A SCREEN
2 - CALIBRATED PRINTERS ARE REQUIRED TO COMPARE PRINTED COLORS TO STAMP COLORS

(yes, I'm yelling)

Now, the information:
See this article on colors of the 3c 1861 issue from the USPCS Chronicle:
http://chronicle.uspcs.org/PDF/Chro...35/20789.pdf

Also, you can try to find the color guides for Scott 64/65 and 10/11 published some time ago by Pittsboro Philatelics. They have color chips for most major colors and a little tool to lay over your stamp and the swatch to compare the colors with minimal distractions.
Here's a copy available from Ken Srail's website: https://srailstamps.com/pittsboro-s...67-279b.html
(I have the older, single page versions for each of the two issues)

Agreed, and calibrating your monitor is not as simple as walking through a manufacturer supplied calibration application. Every lighting environment is different, so any calibration needs to account for the ambient lighting. Human eyes perceive only reflected colors; the surface of a stamp in your hand or on a monitor reflecting light wavelengths and our eyes see the waves as they bounce back; depending on which waves are reflected or absorbed determines what we see as color.

So if you want to see accurate color on your monitor, you are going to have to spend some money on a device/system which detects the ambient lighting conditions. For example, one like this


Without calibrating your monitor with the dependent ambient lighting you would just be kidding yourself.
Don

Don

I used to collect color shades of the 3c 1851 stamp.

Color and shade collecting is extremely fun, but its frustrating in that in order to start collecting, you mostly need reference copies of what you want to collect, in order to compare against. You also need the skill to differentiate the colors using the references. So its a chicken and egg problem.

For the color enthusiast, this is a surmountable problem over time as one accumulates material, studies it, and acquires knowledge and reference material.

For the person who just wants to know the difference between a few Scott catalog numbers and/or major color varieties, this can be maddening.

Hi txstamp,
I agree that with a lot of reference material and effort a person can become skilled at color identification over a given time period. Of course stamp colors (and color guides) are ephemeral over time as the ink and paper chemistry change. Ambient lighting deltas are also a significant variable as are human eyes.

So the 'rub' is when folks try to deal with any changes in those variables (time, ambient lighting, different eyes and most certainly differing computers, scanner, monitors and printers).
Don

Edit; I assume that you actually mean 'hue' and not 'shade' in your post above.

Years ago, I heard that a well-known pigeon-blood pink 3c stamp from a famous collection, was no longer such, due to over-exposure to light from exhibiting.

Tying that into other discussions on certification, that is a good example of when a dated expert cert can be problematic.

edit: Don, thanks, I agree that my terminology is a bit loose.

I hope some day that there will be a non-destructive chemical ink/paper analysis that will definitively ID actual, original colors. Until then, it is critical that some collectors continue to assemble stamps based upon their best subjective judgment; these collection could easily become the foundation of future color analysis.
Don

Edit: And tying it in to the 'grading' topic too! Currently I do not think that color vividness is used in grading but perhaps it should? (especially for a stamp like the pigeon-blood pink 3c) Yikes!

That's actually a pretty interesting point. I know there is an XQ adjective added sometimes for special things, but I kind of doubt whether the expert firms add or subtract points for a particular color variety as long as it fits within the defined parameters for that color. I do not, however, claim to know how they do this.

With most of the varieties I used to collect, there was a range from 'pale to deep', and 'dull to bright'. In addition, how well inked a printing is, environmental damage, and other things come into play.

Grading to me seems like standardized identification of how nice or not-so-nice, a given item is. For a pigeon blood pink, it probably is fair to say that a stronger, more intense example of the color would be more desirable than one that has been exhibited to the point of losing some of its luster (but still qualifying as such).

Maybe an XQ like designation here and there should be enough, as it seems like at this point we are beyond splitting atoms, and trying to split quarks.

Confused yet?? A couple of the references mentioned are great tools. An excellent reference on these colors is found in the "ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE COLORS OF UNITED STATES POSTAGES STAMPS, VOLUME I - II," by R. H. WHITE ®1981. Hopefully, someone else on the Forum will be nice enough to scan the few color pages on the issue to illustrates the color differences. I would, but I just had left knee replacement surgery and I can't navigate stairs to get the Volume in my Stamp Cave. Good luck!

Best,
Hal

For the 3cent A25 Pittsboro is about as good as it gets. Much better than the Whites for this issue. Scott bought the rights to the Pittsboro sets and then put out the Scotts Specialized Color chart book that they then discontinued. Finding the Pittsboro Set or the Scott Book will take you considerable time as they have both been out of print for a very long time. Ken has that as a place holder on his page, it's been "out of stock" for a very long time. Amazon shows the Scott Specialized Color chart book at over $2k.
The best way to determine colors on the A25 issue is to buy certed copies to use as reference. But remember, a stamp certed years ago as pink may now get a cert as rose or rose pink due to oxidation, sulfurication, UV, etc.
it's one of the favorite issues to collect!