Colors

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I want to start this post by Presenting my Best Wishes of Peace and Health to Next Year 2015...

I want to say that this will be a short post , according to the number of stamps, but an important one for me, because it will be about one of my major difficulties when dealing with stamps..since I've started this blog I've been saying that recognizing papers (by touch...) and Colors are my two main 'stone's in the shoe'...

when the time comes the issue 'colors' will be brought to the blog's arena...

today I have stamps from France and Hungary, two Countries always with stamps to enter the Collection..

France

 A beautiful stamp from a series of 1924 dedicated to the VIII Olympic Games , in Paris...it is a series of 4 stamps designed by Edmond Henry Becker, (1871/1971) Sculptor , engraver and known designer of coins ,notes and Jewels and engraved by C. Parison...

1924 "VIII Olympic Games, Paris" (4,4,4) [Des (Edmond Henry Becker)][Engr (C. Parison)][Typo] Sc(198)

When the originals of these stamps were for the first time issued , we were at the end of the WWI..the main subject of the Original series was the Orphans fund , and in one of the designs we can see a widow visiting her husband's Grave and in the other two children left alone by the 'Cruel' War.. these are somehow sad stamps that appeal to reflection and thinking.. I'm not an adept of mixing Politics and stamps, but I think that this is not Politics , this is all about the system in witch Politics lives and rule's us...This system is not always fair and one of it's pillars is one simple thing that allows few to take decisions that will affect thousands of Family's that will lost their relatives , friends, way of life , wealth , etc... It is without doubts one thing that we all should be prepared to change... There must be Always Referendum's before declaring War to another Country..if Country A is in War with Country B, and wins, did the poor widow's that lost their husbands , houses and sometimes children , win too??? I don't think so.. In War nobody wins..! War always was and always shall be the Ultimate failure of Man..

[1st stamp] 1926 "War Orphans Fund" (4) [Des (Louis-Joules Dumoulin 1860/1924)][Engr (L. Ruffe)][Typo] Sc(B20)

this is a stamp originally from 1917, with a different tax applied ..(in the original we have 2c+3c and here we have 2c+1c..)

[2nd and 3rd stamps] 1922 "War Orphans Fund" (8) [Des (Louis-Joules Dumoulin)][Engr (L. Ruffe)][Typo] Sc(B12,B13)

stamps of the Original series of 1917 surcharged...

I think it is time to start talking about colors, their variations and their use in Philately...in this case , 5 stamps of the same individual series are presented each one differing from the others , either by color or by a mix of color and Printing...I think we can say that the first one is the 'Blue' stamp..others are variations of Greenish blue.. the 2nd is a dull Greenish blue, the last one is a dark greenish blue, and the 3rd and 4th differ in the printing , specially in the man's body ( lightly darker in the 4th..).. the last presents us a darker horse (than the 2nd,3rd and 4th..).. the first is without doubts the best printing and probably the desired color.. even in France catalogs (Yvert) , only one color is presented as original, and no other variations are listed...in most cases there is no problem with the appearance of all this variations , but in the stamp we present next , we will see that great problems could emerge, because money is involved..!!

If , in my last post I put great emphasis in the correct identification of Wmk ( remember , we were talking about British stamps...) , now , with French Commemorative stamps the focus go in most cases to the color and it's variations...when we are working with Wmk , there are ways to know and see the mark itself, remaining in the end no doubts about the correct ID of the stamp...with colors, I know there is some kind of device that help us in the identification...I don't want to make publicity , but this was the first one I pick in the Net, and it is a SG item...(I don't own the right's of the image or the item, of course.. they are of SG..)

1st) are the color denominations standard for all countries??

2nd) what and where is the boundary from 1 color to another..??

3rd) who define's it??

I think these are all legitimate questions of someone who has a deep problem with color identification..

1929 " 500th Anniversary of the Relief of Orleans by the French Forces Led by Joan D'Arc" (1) [Des (Gabriel-Antoine Barlangue 1874/1955)][Engr (Abel Mignon)][Typo] Sc(245)

This is the tough subject of the post and the main reason I name it 'colors'.. ; in another post with French stamps I showed another one of these stamps, so these are new additions to the collection , acting as color variations... in this particular case , it is of absolute importance , because two of the variations are listed in the Yvert catalog, and one them has a particularly high cv... 

this is a stamp from a series from 1930 ('Plane flying over Marseilles')..the series has two stamps with the same value .. the first is a deep Carmine stamp and the 2nd a dark blue stamp with variations Ultramarine blue and Bright ultramarine blue...I have posted at the left  a small part of an old YT catalog of the 60's , where you can see this clearly... 

I think I have here '2 or 3 shades of blue', none of them Ultramarine blue.. they are variations of Dark blue.. currently , the prices for the ultramarine variations are € 25.00 cv for the ultramarine and € 460.00 cv (Yvert 2013 Used prices) for the Bright ultramarine..a small color variation could lead to a huge Financial difference.. the last stamp has some strange problems with the labels.. the color is not uniform in some of the labels, there are parts of the currency label, for example, that are not correctly printed .. the color is not uniform...

1930/1931 "AirPlane flying over Marseilles" (2) [Des (Albert Laurens)][Engr (Abel Mignon)][Recess] Sc(C6)

Hungary

 

These are stamps with a very familiar design in Hungarian Philately.. The Turul bird and the Crown of st. Stephen are represented in these stamps from the Flood Control Fund...

The stamps have a tax of 2f , presented in an additional Tax tab (if we consider that the superior part of the stamp is complete with center design , frames and exterior frames...)...however this tab , is not like others we know of other countries stamps , like Belgium , for example (in the Kings Leopold and Albert stamps...)... this tab cannot be separated from the stamp, and is part of the stamp itself while in the Belgium stamps it could be separated.. the series present us two designs , one we have talked about and the other ,of the higher values (k) , showing Emperor Francis Joseph wearing the Hungarian Crown...some stamps are printed with two colors , like the beautiful 12f and the 50f...All the stamps have a beautiful double Crown Wmk, clearly visible in most cases...
1913 "Flood Charity Stamps" (17) [Des (J.Bohm)(O. Tull / the k values)][Typo] Sc(B1,...,B7,B9,...,B13,B15)

These are War stamps from the War Widows and Orphans Fund (additional tax of 2f..).. the design is the same of the 1913 stamps , and in this period two overprinted series with this same design were issued with this tax...(1914 and 1915)
1915 "War Widows and Orphans Fund" (18) [Des (J. Bohm)][Typo] Sc(B35,B36,B38,B39,B40,B43)

these are really beautiful stamps work of two designers.. Jeno Haranguy (40f) (1894/1951) and J.Difcky (others)..One thing that I find strange is that these stamps do not belong to the list of very common stamps from Hungary and yet, they seem to be the stamps with lowest cv  of those who are shown in this post...there must exist a considerably lower demand for Hungarian stamps, to justify the market price they have... it is not understandable because there are very beautiful and well conceived stamps in the classic and Neo-classic period of Hungarian Philately , with lots of excellent works of great Artists...
1916 "War Charity stamps" (3) [Des (Jeno Haranguy/40f)(J. Difcky/others)][Typo] Sc(B53,...,B55)

Seeyou