Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Thanks in advance,
Blair
14 type II
36 Type I
78c
(Modified by Moderator on 2015-12-28 22:34:49)
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Blair, The first two look to be correct. Afraid not on a 78c! The shade shown is not Black Violet, I do not see any Violet in it and that should be the primary color. I'd guess it is a 78b. I've only seen a couple of Black Violets and the color is striking. It is also a very rare stamp, probably less than 30 existing. It would be extremely unlikely to find one floating around.
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LOL a typo... I meant 78b and thanks for the conformation Mitchell. I really appreciate it.
Blair
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Mitch:
I'm going a wee bit off-topic here, but I feel it is useful to the discussion....
"The shade shown is not Black Violet, I do not see any Violet in it and that should be the primary color. "
I returned to the hobby in 1989, as an adult. I started working for a stamp dealer in 2009. One thing that has really helped me understand colour in stamps was the four years I took art and art history. Your aforementioned quote sums up perfectly as to how one should look for a colour variety in a stamp.
It is exactly the same wording I use at work.
Kudos to you.
David
Ottawa, Canada
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The third stamp appears to be #70 used
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David, 
I've spent most of my life working with colors. From cutting gemstones, painting cars, managing a printing shop and of course dealing with stamps. We all probably see colors a little different but one thing I do know is that when you hold one color up to another it either matches or it doesn't. Unless, of course, one is color blind.
Something many collectors do not understand in identifying the color of stamps is that you look for the most solid area of color to determine the actual color. Dots and lines of color will give lighter shades than the solid areas and can be misleading.
"The third stamp appears to be #70 used"
I will agree the stamp is used. Scott #70 is Red Lilac. Lilac is light Purple and Red is Red. My eyes and monitor do not agree with your assessment. I see only Gray (Dark Gray) which is a long way from either Lilac or Red.
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You're a lapidary Mitch? For years I delt in Navajo, Zuni and Hopi jewelry. I learned to cut stone and work silver from a couple of good friends out there.
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Hi Everyone;
@ AntoniusRa;
Hey, I have a question. I've been trying to learn to spot fakes. Since I don't have the wealth of
knowledge and experience as most collectors on here, I just look for something that seems amiss.
The bottom stamp doesn't look right, or maybe I just have an over-active imagination. I down-
loaded the image and rotated it 2.0º counter-clockwise. I then noticed that the two '24's in the
upper corners, are not at the same angle, not even close. I find it rather hard to believe that an
engraver would overlook this. But a person faking this stamp might do just that.
I was sure that they were off, even before I rotated the scan.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
I have always had a keen eye for things the do not seem to line up (spatial skills), and I can spot
an angle that is less than ¼º off of vertical or horizontal, and square.
Can anybody else see this difference, or am I just a freak of Nature?
Okay, to avoid sending everyone off on a wild goose chase, I just checked again, this stamp. After
getting the stamp as near vertical as I could, I then decided to measure the two '24's. When I
rotate the left one 7º it looks horizontal, and the right number has to be rotated 16º in order to
look to be horizontal. Do I need to see an eye doctor, or what?
Just thinkin' too much again....
TuskenRaider
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I see what your talking about but I think it was the engraver:
I got these from two different individuals and as you can see it appears the angle is the same on both stamps. I doubt they are both forgeries, though one is a 70(?) and one is a 78 I believe they were done from the same plates (please correct me if I'm wrong)
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Tusken, I see what you are saying and the numerals are in fact at different angles. I had never noticed that before. One thing good about U.S. stamps is that there are very few known forgeries made of stamps in the 19th century as well as the 20th century. I think the very high quality of engraving kept the forgers at bay. Chances are if you do ever come across one you should be able to spot it right off. This of course is not to say that in the future technology will not be able to duplicate anything most perfectly. I have only ever found the three forgeries in the scan below.
The first is a #39 proof followed by two sad forgeries. The high values of the State Department Officials were all counterfeited by several different pranksters. The first is a genuine proof and the second a forgery. They are on the other hand quite good and fool many collectors. Fortunately they can usually be culled by checking to see if they perf at 12 most forgeries do not. The Colombians were also imitated and sold in sets to collectors. I believe some did not receive the "imitation" over print but they are easily seen as fakes. The 4th items are from the 1869 Pictoral issue. The first genuine and the second one appears to be someone having fun. The frame on both are genuine but some goof ball appears to have erased the vignette and painted in his own version of the locomotive.
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Blair, Yes, I've been cutting stones and making jewelry since 1970. Unfortunately I don't do much these days because of arthritis cramping up my hands.
As to stone cutting and colors especially the colors Purple, Violet and Lilac. I have a website devoted to the recently found and quite rare stone Sugilite. It comes in many different shades even Black Violet and Red Lilac. Because of the range of color it is often hard to decide what colors to call a specific stone. I haven't done anything with the site for sometime and the Black back rounds have all gone to White along with some other features that were old school HTML and are not showing up now. Still you might find it interesting if you go HERE and press the "enter"
button at bottom. Also shown are some of the jewelry pieces I've made.
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Blair and Tusken, This thread got kind of lost and did not show up in last 30 or last day
shortly after being posted. I finally found it in "last week". I thought I would bring it back up so you can see my replies, in case you missed them.
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I love sugilite and the similarly colored charoite. I've used both in inlay... charoite can he a pain to work with due to it's tendency to flake.
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Blair, I've never cut any Charoite but a guy I was doing some business with was importing it from Russia. He said it was quite scarce and I believe it had also recently been discovered in the 1980's. I have no reason to doubt him as I had never seen it before.
I was lucky in finding a dealer who had come by a large portion of Sugilite back in the late 1980's. I got 150lbs from him which was a pretty good portion of all the Sugilite that had been found by that time. I don't know whether much more has been found in the last 10-15 years. My favorite stone to cut is Australian Opal, you never know what you are going to end up with until you cut through that last layer, if you dare. Afhganni Lapis and Turquoise are others I like to work with. I hand picked around 60 pounds of the best looking sky Blue spider web I had ever seen at the Sante fe flea market about 17 years ago. Unfortunately I was traveling a lot at the time and hid it in case somebody wanted to break into my house, unfortunately I've never been able to remember where I hid it. I never even got to cut a single stone from it.
To keep it philatetic, Minerals on stamps is a popular topical theme.
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Sugilite was discovered in the 1940s and is still mined in a few locations. Charoite was discovered in the 1980s and is still only known from one location in Siberia. Both are very rare sadly sugilite is often faked with "Block" which is a plastic product used by many jewelers and lapidaries to create less expensive jewelry... sadly many unscrupulous dealers sell jewelry made with block as natural stone.
You should see the opal that comes from the Gilson company. It's grown in a lab and is as fiery as the highest grade natural. As I'm sure you know natural opal is hydrous silicon dioxide... basically microcrystaline silica with water in the matrix... the water creating the rainbow effect... in Gilson Opal the rainbow effect is created by an oil so the opal doesn't dry out as natural can.
Anyway this is an area I have spent a lot of time studying... I could go on for hours but better stop now... or people will think this is a lapidary forum instead of a stamp forum...
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Haven't seen where anyone mentioned this in this thread;
the 24 cent Washington in question -
it also appears to be (very poorly) reperfed on the right side.
Randy
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Hi Randy! Happy New Year!
Yes I saw that when I purchased the stamp. I can't understand why someone would do that. A straight edge or damaged perfs would be better than this...
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Added these three to my collection. Please tell me if I have any of them Identified wrong.
Thanks in advance,
Blair
14 type II
36 Type I
78c
(Modified by Moderator on 2015-12-28 22:34:49)
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re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
Blair, The first two look to be correct. Afraid not on a 78c! The shade shown is not Black Violet, I do not see any Violet in it and that should be the primary color. I'd guess it is a 78b. I've only seen a couple of Black Violets and the color is striking. It is also a very rare stamp, probably less than 30 existing. It would be extremely unlikely to find one floating around.
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re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
LOL a typo... I meant 78b and thanks for the conformation Mitchell. I really appreciate it.
Blair
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re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
Mitch:
I'm going a wee bit off-topic here, but I feel it is useful to the discussion....
"The shade shown is not Black Violet, I do not see any Violet in it and that should be the primary color. "
I returned to the hobby in 1989, as an adult. I started working for a stamp dealer in 2009. One thing that has really helped me understand colour in stamps was the four years I took art and art history. Your aforementioned quote sums up perfectly as to how one should look for a colour variety in a stamp.
It is exactly the same wording I use at work.
Kudos to you.
David
Ottawa, Canada
3 Members
like this post.
Login to Like.
03:01:00pm
re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
The third stamp appears to be #70 used
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re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
David, I've spent most of my life working with colors. From cutting gemstones, painting cars, managing a printing shop and of course dealing with stamps. We all probably see colors a little different but one thing I do know is that when you hold one color up to another it either matches or it doesn't. Unless, of course, one is color blind.
Something many collectors do not understand in identifying the color of stamps is that you look for the most solid area of color to determine the actual color. Dots and lines of color will give lighter shades than the solid areas and can be misleading.
"The third stamp appears to be #70 used"
I will agree the stamp is used. Scott #70 is Red Lilac. Lilac is light Purple and Red is Red. My eyes and monitor do not agree with your assessment. I see only Gray (Dark Gray) which is a long way from either Lilac or Red.
Login to Like
this post
re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
You're a lapidary Mitch? For years I delt in Navajo, Zuni and Hopi jewelry. I learned to cut stone and work silver from a couple of good friends out there.
Login to Like
this post
re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
Hi Everyone;
@ AntoniusRa;
Hey, I have a question. I've been trying to learn to spot fakes. Since I don't have the wealth of
knowledge and experience as most collectors on here, I just look for something that seems amiss.
The bottom stamp doesn't look right, or maybe I just have an over-active imagination. I down-
loaded the image and rotated it 2.0º counter-clockwise. I then noticed that the two '24's in the
upper corners, are not at the same angle, not even close. I find it rather hard to believe that an
engraver would overlook this. But a person faking this stamp might do just that.
I was sure that they were off, even before I rotated the scan.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
I have always had a keen eye for things the do not seem to line up (spatial skills), and I can spot
an angle that is less than ¼º off of vertical or horizontal, and square.
Can anybody else see this difference, or am I just a freak of Nature?
Okay, to avoid sending everyone off on a wild goose chase, I just checked again, this stamp. After
getting the stamp as near vertical as I could, I then decided to measure the two '24's. When I
rotate the left one 7º it looks horizontal, and the right number has to be rotated 16º in order to
look to be horizontal. Do I need to see an eye doctor, or what?
Just thinkin' too much again....
TuskenRaider
Login to Like
this post
re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
I see what your talking about but I think it was the engraver:
I got these from two different individuals and as you can see it appears the angle is the same on both stamps. I doubt they are both forgeries, though one is a 70(?) and one is a 78 I believe they were done from the same plates (please correct me if I'm wrong)
Login to Like
this post
re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
Tusken, I see what you are saying and the numerals are in fact at different angles. I had never noticed that before. One thing good about U.S. stamps is that there are very few known forgeries made of stamps in the 19th century as well as the 20th century. I think the very high quality of engraving kept the forgers at bay. Chances are if you do ever come across one you should be able to spot it right off. This of course is not to say that in the future technology will not be able to duplicate anything most perfectly. I have only ever found the three forgeries in the scan below.
The first is a #39 proof followed by two sad forgeries. The high values of the State Department Officials were all counterfeited by several different pranksters. The first is a genuine proof and the second a forgery. They are on the other hand quite good and fool many collectors. Fortunately they can usually be culled by checking to see if they perf at 12 most forgeries do not. The Colombians were also imitated and sold in sets to collectors. I believe some did not receive the "imitation" over print but they are easily seen as fakes. The 4th items are from the 1869 Pictoral issue. The first genuine and the second one appears to be someone having fun. The frame on both are genuine but some goof ball appears to have erased the vignette and painted in his own version of the locomotive.
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
Blair, Yes, I've been cutting stones and making jewelry since 1970. Unfortunately I don't do much these days because of arthritis cramping up my hands.
As to stone cutting and colors especially the colors Purple, Violet and Lilac. I have a website devoted to the recently found and quite rare stone Sugilite. It comes in many different shades even Black Violet and Red Lilac. Because of the range of color it is often hard to decide what colors to call a specific stone. I haven't done anything with the site for sometime and the Black back rounds have all gone to White along with some other features that were old school HTML and are not showing up now. Still you might find it interesting if you go HERE and press the "enter"
button at bottom. Also shown are some of the jewelry pieces I've made.
Login to Like
this post
re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
Blair and Tusken, This thread got kind of lost and did not show up in last 30 or last day
shortly after being posted. I finally found it in "last week". I thought I would bring it back up so you can see my replies, in case you missed them.
2 Members
like this post.
Login to Like.
re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
I love sugilite and the similarly colored charoite. I've used both in inlay... charoite can he a pain to work with due to it's tendency to flake.
Login to Like
this post
re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
Blair, I've never cut any Charoite but a guy I was doing some business with was importing it from Russia. He said it was quite scarce and I believe it had also recently been discovered in the 1980's. I have no reason to doubt him as I had never seen it before.
I was lucky in finding a dealer who had come by a large portion of Sugilite back in the late 1980's. I got 150lbs from him which was a pretty good portion of all the Sugilite that had been found by that time. I don't know whether much more has been found in the last 10-15 years. My favorite stone to cut is Australian Opal, you never know what you are going to end up with until you cut through that last layer, if you dare. Afhganni Lapis and Turquoise are others I like to work with. I hand picked around 60 pounds of the best looking sky Blue spider web I had ever seen at the Sante fe flea market about 17 years ago. Unfortunately I was traveling a lot at the time and hid it in case somebody wanted to break into my house, unfortunately I've never been able to remember where I hid it. I never even got to cut a single stone from it.
To keep it philatetic, Minerals on stamps is a popular topical theme.
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
Sugilite was discovered in the 1940s and is still mined in a few locations. Charoite was discovered in the 1980s and is still only known from one location in Siberia. Both are very rare sadly sugilite is often faked with "Block" which is a plastic product used by many jewelers and lapidaries to create less expensive jewelry... sadly many unscrupulous dealers sell jewelry made with block as natural stone.
You should see the opal that comes from the Gilson company. It's grown in a lab and is as fiery as the highest grade natural. As I'm sure you know natural opal is hydrous silicon dioxide... basically microcrystaline silica with water in the matrix... the water creating the rainbow effect... in Gilson Opal the rainbow effect is created by an oil so the opal doesn't dry out as natural can.
Anyway this is an area I have spent a lot of time studying... I could go on for hours but better stop now... or people will think this is a lapidary forum instead of a stamp forum...
Login to Like
this post
re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
Haven't seen where anyone mentioned this in this thread;
the 24 cent Washington in question -
it also appears to be (very poorly) reperfed on the right side.
Randy
Login to Like
this post
re: Three New Additions - ID Confirmation?
Hi Randy! Happy New Year!
Yes I saw that when I purchased the stamp. I can't understand why someone would do that. A straight edge or damaged perfs would be better than this...
Login to Like
this post