Scott 4270, 2008 US Love Stamp Missing Red Ink Vs Mnh Example

Scott 4270, 2008 US Love stamp, man lifting heart. A while back I obtained a beginner's stamp album that contained this cancelled 2008 US Love stamp. It appears to be missing the red ink, which was the main ink color on this stamp.

Is this a known error?

I have uploaded my MNH copy of this stamp issue. The stamp in this posting was in an album of only 100-200 very common US stamps. It is unlikely that the original owner of the album was even aware that there was a branch of the hobby that included errors and oddities. The man and the green ground in the stamp do not appear to have artificially bleached or lightened.

Second Edit: I have collected stamps since the early 1950s and until last month my collection activities had been on hold for over 15 years. This is my first post on this forum.
The comments received are welcomed and understood. I looked at the "missing red" ink stamp and the MNH stamp with both a 10X eye loop and an American Optical Spencer inspection microscope (40X I believe). There is no red ink residual anywhere on the "missing ink" stamp and the MNH stamp is densely covered with red ink. The green, blue and yellow inks are strong and about equal on both stamps. Commenters have suggested there is substantial fading accounting for the "missing red ink" condition. If that is so, why are the green, blue and yellow inks still strong on both stamps? Is there evidence that the modern red inks used in stamp printing are subject to fading, but the other colors resist fading?

Attached is a composite detail scan at 1200 dpi of the man and heart area of both stamps. Some commenters suggested the missing red ink stamp may have been chemically treated. If so, why are the non red colors still about the same strength as the MNH stamp? Has the stamp collecting community determined their are reagents, i.e, bleaches, that are color selective?

Another interesting artifact is that in the high resolution 1200 dpi composite scan from the Epson scanner the wavy cancellation marks are red in color, while there is no red in any other area on the stamp. Yet, when looked at that stamp with the 10X eye loop or the 40X microscope with a halogen light source the cancellation lines are black with no hint of red.

Your stamp is used and therefor it can not be stated that the red is missing for sure. If you look at the cancellation, it is supposed to be black (?) but looks faded. Maybe environmental damage, or maybe done on purpose to create a "variety" ?


Peter

We get about 1 thread here per month asking about color-missing "errors" on a modern U.S. stamp. It is almost always red which is missing. It is almost always a used stamp (although not an absolute kiss of death to being an error, it makes the odds much longer). Your stamp is very typical of sun-fade as the red end of the specturm tends to fade first from stamps.

The only slightly irritating detail of your stamp is the very strong black "2008" at bottom right (but this might be a camera sensitivity issue if the whole stamp has strongly faded).
All other stuff is strongly faded, including the black ink of the cancel.
I'm pretty sure if you use a microscope, you will still see red ink dots in the middle of the left bulge of the heart as this area seems to still contain residial red ink dots.

The areas of the cancel over the heart show traces of red, also on both sides of the man at the bottom. This is almost certainly a color changeling from sunlight or chemicals.

Here is what the sun can do to the color red. Not all reds will disappear like this but just to show you what can happen when a stamp is left in a sunny place or in a frame in a sunny room or deliberately left in a sunny window. It might take a few weeks, sometimes a few months but red, as was mentioned above is extremely unstable. But not always.


Canada #716. This would never fool an expert. The paper changes towards yellow, the tagging bars start to fade under a black light but start being more visible without a black light. I've done my own research and tested many stamps this way. This is not meant to fool anybody but to understand what is changing the color. Other colors also are affected, especially any color that is mixed with red. I can show you more if there is interest.

It happens like this with green, too. I have some U.S. wine stamps which were probably in a window display in a liquor store at some point. The green ranges from all but gone to totally gone.

"Another interesting artifact is that in the high resolution 1200 dpi composite scan from the Epson scanner the wavy cancellation marks are red in color, while there is no red in any other area on the stamp. Yet, when looked at that stamp with the 10X eye loop or the 40X microscope with a halogen light source the cancellation lines are black with no hint of red."

Yes, his chromatic aberration is an artifact of your scanner. At high dpi scanning, small features and the edges of bigger features can show false colors. Different scanners will start showing this at different dpi.

" I looked at the "missing red" ink stamp and the MNH stamp with both a 10X eye loop and an American Optical Spencer inspection microscope (40X I believe). There is no red ink residual anywhere on the "missing ink" stamp"

Sure looks like red is present at the left.

"Is there evidence that the modern red inks used in stamp printing are subject to fading, but the other colors resist fading?" & "Has the stamp collecting community determined their are reagents, i.e, bleaches, that are color selective?"

There are 2 different ways to bleach a color. One is with light, the other with a chemical. Reds & yellows are easier to bleach. Different colors (will react differently to different chemicals.

"Second Edit:"

It is preferred that you add new comments at the bottom thru either the quick reply box of the reply to topic button instead of adding to the bottom of your first posting as people look for new postings at the bottom of the thread and aren't going to read all the previous posts looking to see if anyone dited something they already read.

Thanks for all the information and recommendations.