France Arctic Territory #12 Albatross

Small observation
I'm interested to know a little more then what my Scott's provided
I noticed I had three slightly different colourings of the 0.f.30 in the face/beak area
One blue and the others brown/black
What was the original colours?






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Peter

Thanks peter

Catalogues don't differentiate between colourings on these.

This is a stamp where different color inks are carefully placed on a single engraved design. It allows colors to mix somewhat freely. This allows the beak to be different colors, as is the tip of the rock outcrop behind the bird and the leading edge of the bird's left wing. This mixing is not regarded as a "fatal" design flaw and is accepted as normal by the printers, stamp issuers and the catalogs. So, you get the variable coloring as you detected, but you could go on forever charting all the variations possible. Fun stuff, but not valuable.

You will find this in varying degrees in all multicolor engraved stamps of France and the French Community beginning from at least the 1950s.

I suspect that collectors in other countries might make more of these variations, but, in general, French catalogues don't seem very concerned about them, especially in respect of modern stamps.

Yep - if this was a Canadian stamp, each variation would be identified and listed in Unitrade.