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The Colour of a Stamp
Stamps are printed in numbers running into millions and even hundreds of millions. It is impossible to print such large numbers in one run. Even nowadays, with the most modern technology and techniques, the printers do not always succeed in mixing exactly the same colour when they start a new run of printing. From time to time, it becomes necessary to clean the machines or the supply of ink runs out and a new supply has to be used, coming, perhaps, from another factory. If such problems have to be dealt with today, it is difficult to imagine how great the difficulties were in the classical stamp period when printing techniques were much more primitive.
This is how the different colour shades, which are of great interest to philatelic specialists, are produced. Often, for a new printing, new plates were used or the old plate was repaired. This is the origin of different types, as stamps are called which differ, as a result of reprinting, from the original issue.
Philatelists use a colour guide as an accessory to help them with the most difficult colour problems. Some of the common colour guides list about 160 squares with colour shades. In many cases, there is a hole in the centre of a colour to enable the philatelist to put the stamp in question underneath and to compare colours with printed squares. The name of the colour is printed underneath the square, usually in several languages, using the names of colours found in the most significant world catalogues.
Philatelists will often be at a loss as they may not be able to find the exact shade of their stamp in the colour guide. In such a case, they have to use their own judgment and decide which colour is nearest to the shade of their stamp. One can distinguish about 200 clear colour tones, but when colours are mixed, the number of shades can exceed 15000. Obviously, it is impossible to publish a colour guide listing such a vast number, or to produce in print all the finest shades or even to give them a name.
There are three basic shades: yellow, red and blue. If equal quantities of two of these colours are mixed, the results are green, orange and violet. Shades are obtained according to the proportion of the individual colour components. If all the basic colours are mixed, the result is black.
For the stamp collector, it is of importance to understand the system of listing colours in a catalogue. Whenever a combined name for a colour is given, the last named colour always predominates. For instance, yellowish-green means green with yellow added. On the other hand, greenish-yellow means yellow with green added. In the first case, green is predominant whereas in the second case, it is yellow.
Even the most comprehensive catalogues cannot go into all the details of colours. Therefore everything will depend on the collector: his experience, and most of all on the comparative material he has for making the right decisions on colours and shades concerned. This is frequently of great importance; there are many cheap and common stamps which have some colour shades that are rare and very expensive.
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