What Color Are These 24 Cent Proofs?

Despite the warnings about identifying colors on computer screens, does anyone have any opinions on the colors of these 24 cent Proofs? Top row are card proofs, bottom row are India proofs.

I'm only speaking from limited knowledge on these, but I talked with Jim Lee about these a few years ago, and I recall he said that they fade very easily, and bright purple ones (like your top right stamp) are very desirable and harder to come by as time goes on. Keep these out of the light for more than a couple minutes unless protected by uv-blocking plastic (which it looks like you are likely doing anyway). Others will probably be more knowledgeable about this, but I is possible that these are just illustrating different levels of fading on proofs that were originally the same color.

An early use of aniline purple (Mauveine)? Mauve was big in the 1860s- "Lot of women in mauve on the streets today" to misquote the Dead.

"Synthetic dyes invented in the nineteenth century are often categorized as highly fugitive when exposed to light." Quote from "The lighfastness of early synthetic organic dyes" Hagon, Castro-Soto, Breault & Poulin, published Nature 19 April 2022.

Aha, that makes sense, thanks.

The middle stamp in the top row is a good match to the "red lilac" color listed in White, as well as many of the certified copies of 70P4 red lilac on the PF site, but most of the copies of 70P4 red lilac in Siegel Power Search are closer to the bright purple stamp on the right.

I was confused and couldn't believe how these could be the same color, but with Jim Lee's testimony, I am satisfied with the explanation and I will keep the stamps "in the dark" to prevent further fading.

This is an interesting and relevant article about the mauveine dye presumably used in these stamps: https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/ob...ificial-dyes - says it can fade within just a few hours of exposure to the sun.

I imagine these 24¢ stamps were all vibrant when they were first printed, but by now we all we have various brown and gray stamps identified with colors like "red violet." I am curious why we ONLY have proofs left that are anything close to "violet" today. I have never seen or heard of a 70/78 that was actually a violet/purple color - they are now all just brown and gray - some of them with a tint of purple/violet.

I have wondered te same thing. Perhaps the actual stamps were printed with a different ink than the proofs?
I also question how most of them can be properly IDed as 70 or 78.

Different inks we're certainly true for the Navy Department proofs, they are darker than the stamps.

Wasn't there several different printings of the departmental card proofs?

There were, but the later Atlanta and Goodall proofs were in different colors then the original proofs. Which were in different colors than the Navy stamps. Makes it easier to tell when a 24 cent proof has been played with to fake it being the stamp by adding cft. perfs and gum.

Zebraman wrote:




Actually, what you have on the top row right is 70P4 red lilac. The other two are 78P4 shades of lilac. Row two is two shades of 78P3. I can't speak to what Roy White said/wrote/showed, but the Scott listings are not hard to follow. One of the giveaways is that the red lilac shade does not appear on India paper, but the other two do as you have pretty well shown. The red lilac on card is the most pricey of these plate proofs.

Thank you essayk for your expertise.