Colored Cancellations In The 1860-S

Does anyone have a source to determine the year of a cancellation by the color of the cancellation.
Example 1 -- Boston cancellation dated Feb 6 in a light red or brown (which has also a cork cancel next to it. Probably #65 on cover

Example 2 - Maryland cancel in blue, possibly from Antietam but it is a #65 on cover which says the Post office did not exist. Could be a different city.

Just trying to identify if a city used certain color cancellations in various years etc.

Happy to upload images if it helps.

Chase's work will likely be the place to go. Postmark information starts at PDF page 237 (Book page 229).

https://www.uspcs.org/wp-content/up...okmarked.pdf

It goes without saying that illustrations help.

Below are the two covers: Blue cancellation is clearly from Maryland and most likely a #65, appears the town ends with an "M". Trying to determine town name and year based on blue cancellation. THe red or red brown Boston cancellation of Feb 8 again is most likely a #65 but trying to determine year based on cancellation color. Thanks

First one looks like West Newton. Can't help with the date.

In dating covers, one has to look at all the features. Ink color is only part of the evidence and varies town by town. Black, red, and blue inks are the most common throughout these years with the USPOD and only gradually shifted toward black.
Similarly to look at the stamp, which was issued in late 1861. Your covers are from Feb and Jan, respectively, thus automatically 1862 or later. Sometimes the sender/recipient provide clues as well.

For the first, Boston commonly killed the stamp in black and dated with red. The key here is most likely the killer pattern.

For the Maryland cover, I would suggest Hagerstown as the origin city. The year date looks like 1863 in the cancel, but if not, it is still more likely to be the first half of the 1860s. The cancel style would be consistent with a town large enough to receive a standard government-issued device, A fairly early use of the stamp would be consistent with using the date-stamp as a cancel, rather than a duplexed device.