Is there a color identifier for stamps?

There are a few out there.I have a wonder color gauge I purchased thru ebay.

Cardguy: Welcome!

I'm not a US guy, but I'm not sure the Wonder color gauge is the one you want. I'm not sure that it's considered as accurate as you might want.

Someone else might recall better than I, but I thought Scott at one point issued a color guide. Maybe I'm dreaming that, or maybe it was a for a limited series of stamps.

Wait -- I just did a quick Google search.

Here's an article from Linn's in 2002 saying that Scott hadn't published one, and had no intention of doing so:

www.linns.com/howto/refresher/colorid_20020722/refreshercourse.aspx

But they have since had a change of heart, and here it is on Amazon (and I'm sure many other places as well):

www.amazon.com/Scott-Specialized-Color-Guides-Stamps/dp/0894873733

(and here it is on the Amos website -- if you're a Linn's subscriber, you can pick it up for less than retail, but shipping will be 10%, which puts it about where the Amazon price is:

www.amosadvantage.com/scottonline/product.asp?category=COL&part_no=CG01&find_category=WEB_ALL&find_description=&find_part_desc=color+guide )

But in that Linn's article, it explains a little bit about why color terms and color guides are kind of a strange beast. Basically, color names are not consistent over time, and definitely not consistent across catalog publishers.

If the Columbus you describe is a lot of what's driving you to get a color guide, an alternative (and here's where it's clear that I don't know US stamps) is, if you can find a US stamp issued in approximately the same era, whose color description in the Scott catalog is the same as the one you're trying to check for (say, ultramarine), you can use that more common stamp as your reference copy for that color.

Let me try that again: if ultramarine is the uncommon color for the Columbus, then check and see if there's another stamp (perhaps a definitive) issued within a few years of the Columbus where ultramarine is the common color. Then, find a few stamps of that type to confirm that you're looking at what was ultramarine of that time, and compare that to your Columbus. That approach would probably be more accurate that the Wonder color guide, and perhaps at least as accurate as the Scott guide.

Just my thoughts on this challenging problem for stamps from the classic era (I deal with it with early Japan).

-- Dave

Once upon a time, I had a similar question about a 4 cent Columbian - my copy seemed darker than normal, and was on very toned paper similar to the copy shown on the Wikipedia article for the stamp.  But I really, really, really doubt I found a $10,000+ stamp in a pile of kiloware!  ha ha

On a quick, search, I didn't come up with the same websites I had found before, with comparative photos of the two colours.  I did, however, come across this interesting .PDF document that does show some photos of 4 cent blue stamps.



Ryan