Shades

Another area of catalog inconsistency concerns shades. Generally speaking, Scott lists all shades of a stamp as minor (that is “a”) numbers. If a stamp is issued in rose, the major catalog listing is for rose and all of the shades of rose from dark rose to scarlet are listed as minor numbers. Only when a color is truly changed, say from red to blue, does the catalog give that stamp a different major number. This is a pretty good system as it lets general collectors concentrate on getting the major different stamps while allowing specialists to concentrate on shade varieties. In a few areas this breaks down and one of those areas is Canada #16-17. Pictured above is #16 along with a few other of the 10c shades that are listed as varieties of #17. This is a stamp that has scores of shade varieties. Indeed red lilacs tend to be among the most variety prone of all stamp shades (look at the plethora of varieties on US #70 and 78) as the ink changes a bit over time and it seems that almost every batch of ink produced a new shade.

 The difference between a major number and a minor number is not a trivial academic matter. Major numbers are needed by all collectors for completion and have spaces in all the major stamp albums. Minor numbers have only a few collectors searching for them so the difference in price is significant. Canada #16 catalogs for $5500 whereas many of the shades of #17 which are just as scarce catalog for $160. Why do some stamps get this special status? As far as I can tell (and I know this sounds cynical) it is philatelic politics. In the old days of the hobby when numbers were being assigned it really mattered who went to bat for which stamp and this was usually a factor of whether that collector owned the stamp in question or not. Today these catalog quirks have been enshrined in our hobby and are rarely noticed. But they are residuals of a day when the self interest of the editors had great influence on the listings.