Questions About Color And Size Variation In Classic US Stamps

Hello Everyone,

I was looking over my covers and realized that the scott 114 stamps on this cover are two different shades and sizes, why is that?

Is the difference in color due to oxidation or are they from two different printings?

Is there a degree of size variation in different printings?

For this era, there was a wide range of color/paper/size variations. The technology and QA process was more lax than today.

The color/shade differences between the 2 stamps on your cover came from 2 different sheets, probably printed in 2 different printings. Ink batches showed quite a bit of variation. The size difference was completely normal - even within the same sheet, the perforation machine could have been set with different spacings between rows and columns. As today, if you used 2 stamps to mail a letter, normally they came from the same sheet, so the differences between these two stamps on the same cover are interesting. Not rare or scarce, but interesting. Perhaps the sender affixed a stamp at home, took it to the PO to mail, found out it was overweight, and was sold a 2nd stamp (from a different sheet/printing) to cover the cost.