New Member Here. Question About US Scott 64 And 65

Probably not posting in correct area but cannot find how to post questions. My question: Collecting since about 1960 and now examining my older classics. I am double checking all of my stamps and most are very easy to identify. I have about 200 stamps I have previously marked as Scott 64 and the same amount I have marked 65. I also have a couple of hundred Civil War era letters with stamps on them in shoe boxes that I have marked as 64 or 65. I Had stroke a few years back so not a real good memory anymore. I am sure I knew at one time but I am trying to figure out how to tell the difference between a Scott 64 and a Scott 65 without using color. Is there something in the design I can comprare. I have the Micarelli Guide to US Stamps and the Scott US Specialized catalogue. Plus of course google. None of these give me a way to easily check to see if I have a 64 or 65. Sorry for the long post. Bob.

Hi Bob - It really comes down to color. There are some things that can be helpful though. Oftentimes you will see a bluish cast over a 64.

Keep in mind that the quantity produced of Scott 64 was around 100,000 against almost two billion of the Washington three cent stamps. That makes a 50/50 split when sorting these highly unlikely.

You need a reference 64 in front of you. Then it becomes easy to tell the difference. Buy a certified one, or get one from a dealer or another collector you trust (best if in person, so you can see the difference before you buy.) You obviously don't need a superb copy to match color - just one you are sure is identified correctly.

wait, y'all can't tell the difference between pink, pidgeon blood pink, rose pink, rose, rose red, dull red, and brown red?

@ bobbkc111, there are definitely additional things to look for besides color. This is an excellent resource:

https://chronicle.uspcs.org/PDF/Chr...44/10827.pdf

"wait, y'all can't tell the difference between pink, pidgeon blood pink, rose pink, rose, rose red, dull red, and brown red?"

Funny and just my sentiments about the Scott catalogue's obsession over tiny differences among stamps along with slightly different and often barely even noticeable differences in color shades.

This was all ginned up back in the earliest days of stamp collecting, and it's worth noting that not only are we still stuck with those decisions today -- to fill all the spaces in our albums, anyway -- but there is also a very good reason cataloguers and stamp dealers made all these fairly picky differentiations among what are (mostly) similar to nearly identical stamps.

That reason was that there weren't enough stamps yet.

In the early years of collecting, there just weren't enough stamps to collect, so both collectors and dealers got out their magnifying glasses and identified whatever small distinctions they could find among what most people would consider to be the same stamp. As stamps were printed over time, small differences would appear as slightly different paper got used -- or tiny touch-ups were made to the printing plates as they wore down from use -- or different shades of ink got mixed from slightly different combinations of ink ("A tiny drop of red, then a drop of blue, then . . .").

So there we go -- a reason for different catalogue numbers for different stamps (which aren't always different stamps)! Yahoo! More money for dealers selling all these "different" stamps! And more stamps to collect for collectors! It just became an accepted reality, or maybe half-fiction, of the hobby that we're now stuck with. Not an "entire" fiction because there are some notable differences -- just get out your magnifying glass and your color chart and take our word for it even if you're not entirely in agreement. I mean, really, what are the real differences among all those shades of pink? And where do you draw the line?

Yes, they are some real differences but some most of us would not even notice. Those that are clear such as engraving changes on reissued stamps, and so on, can legitimately be called different stamps. But it's when we get into slightly different shades of pink that I cannot believe otherwise intelligent people could be serious.

But when money is at stake, this is sometimes what you get. "This one is a much rarer angel blood pink which naturally sells for much more money, there being so few angels left anymore, than the more common standard pink which nearly everyone owns. . . " Uh, sure, whatever you say.

Scott, just a few years ago, gave up on listing as real stamps a long list of "proofs" and essays which they moved to those later categories in their catalogue. So what do we do with those spaces in our old albums now? I just leave that page there for old time's sake, So if they can come to their senses about essays they once thought were stamps but were not, maybe they can come to their senses about tiny shade differences in early stamps.

And one final point. All of us have come across color shades differences, sometimes very notable ones, even among modern stamps. But hardly any of these differences make it into the catalogue. I wonder why? Is it because we already have enough stamps to collect so listing "dark" blue or "prussian blue" or "medium" blue or "black-blue" for various printings of modern stamps is just no longer necessary? They do exist. It's because once Scott gave into the arguments that this pink was slightly different from this other pink by giving them different catalogue numbers they were stuck with it. Or better said, we are now all stuck with it.

Pink was used early in the production cycle. It was determined to be too fugitive, so later printings shifted to more rose (darker) shades. Simple test - it a cover dates from mid-1862 or later, it's not pink. Even early 1862 is likely not pink.

The so-called "Pigeon Blood Pink" is a pink shade with a slightly bluish cast. If exposed to light, it was become "Pink." There are many examples of previously certified pigeon bloods that got re-certified as pink or rose pink due to fading.