Capex Color Missing Uncertainty

Came across this and have questions (beyond why did they tear off the bottom 4 stamps)






Due to the perf shift, the 3rd stamp is missing the blue (there is blue on his belly). But Scott doesn't list a color missing for the 3rd stamp, but instead for the 2nd stamp. I don't see how you could have the blue missing on the nd stamp and not the 3rd, so I wonder if Scott is mixed up. On mine, on the second stamp, the blue comes down to about the middle of the perfs.

I really don't like Scott's decision to create Missing Color error listings out of misperfs. It changes a simple $10 misperf into a $100 "error" just because the perf shift caused one color to be clipped off. The color is not missing. It is not a printing error and should not be listed as such. The artifact came from the perforating stage not the printing stage so it should not be classified as a printing error. IMO. </rant>

Color missing or not, you have a great item there. I do agree with your analysis that if the perf shift causes the blue to be missing from the Mallard, then the blue would also be missing from the Canada Goose.

There is a PF certificate (400663) for a similar perf shift, and it concurs with the Scott listing, "It Is A Genuine Never Hinged SCOTT 1757 VARIETY, SCOTT 1757b WITH THE BLUE COLOR OMITTED, THE BALANCE OF THE STAMPS WITH ALL COLORS PRESENT".

It calls it a 1757var not 1757m. My guess is it was certified before the Scott listing was created, and Scott took the certificate language as truth without evaluating the item themselves.

Curiously the certificate was submitted as "BLOCK OF EIGHT, 13c MALLARD (SCOTT 1757b) WITH BLUE OMITTED, 13c CANADA GOOSE (SCOTT 1757c) WITH BROWN OMITTED." What are the odds that the submitter missed the blue in the goose's belly _and_ the PF missed it too? Maybe there is a speck of blue in the wing tips? I don't see any.

I had a mixup once with the PF on a Bicentennial souvenir sheet. One stamp had the denomination missing, and two had minuscule bits of color. They wrote up the certificate with the wrong numbering of the positions a/b/c/d/e. They corrected the certificate for free, but still mistakes do happen.

You could send yours in (PF? PSE?) and see what they say. It could lead to a new (or corrected) Scott listing. I'd also be curious to hear what John Hotchner has to say about this dilemma.

PF Cert 400663 image:





Edit: I wonder what the US ERRORS Book reads about these. Currently I am away from my copy for a few days.

The US Errors Catalog does the right thing (in my opinion) and does not list color-missing errors caused by perforation shifts.

In the introduction (17th edition), they distinguish color-missing from color-omitted:

I still quibble that they call it a color-missing error and not a color-missing freak or oddity. If the perforations are shifted half an inch in one direction it is called a misperf freak, but if they are shifted half an inch in the other direction it becomes an "error" with an inflated price tag. I don't get it.

Thanks PPG for the certificate scan. Now I am more convinced it is a typo on the certificate and subsequent Scott listing. It should say Scott 1757c with the blue color missing, not 1757b.

On the stamp from the original post, the last blue dot is just at the midpoint of the perfs.


The perfs on the certified copy are a hair higher, putting the blue dots below the midpoint of the perfs on 1757b.



On the goose, I see blue dots on the goose's belly but none on the feathers. I do see brown on the feathers below the perf line so the certificate is correct that 1757c does not have the brown missing, as suggested by the submitter. But no blue below the perf line on 1757c so the certificate should have said missing blue on that stamp, IMO.

Thanks, we all seem to agree they got the description wrong.

I don't hold color missing due to perf shift in as high regard as a color omitted, and the market doesn't either, but that doesn't mean it isn't an error.

Now a question about value. Lets assume a full block of 8 with the color missing has a value of say $500 (not saying it is worth that), what would my block be worth? $250? $125?

Valuation on these is tricky. It is quite nice, but there a a slew of these out there. There a bunch of shifts on the 2 big sites. I am not convinced anyone is really interested in color missings overall from what I have seen as compared to omits. These are leftover auction items, often times from places like Raritan. I have picked missings up, but only on the cheap. Unless someone is trying to complete some bigger complete collection, I doubt there is a lot of demand. You can price it at any level maybe towards the higher end, but finding a buyer I think is where the scarcity lies here. If you price it too cheap, one of the 5 EFO dealers will spew it back on a lifelong listing at 3X in the bay.