At a church bazaar today, a friend ran across this. a US Georgia O'Keefe sheet in yellow versus red! Having been in the printer industry, it looks like the magenta print has been removed (chemically) or faded with sun exposure. If it is missing as a result of a printing error. it could be a goodie! The owner brought it in to show to a couple who had set up a stamp booth, to see what they thought. The owner is not a collector and just bought the sheet because she liked it.
Any ideas? Anyone know of this issue fading in sunlight?
The Linn's Stamp News Magazine (September 17, 2017) page 6, offers an excellent
article on stamp mis-coloration and coloration errors entitled "The expertizer's mind-set: skepticism and review." As a collector of Russian error and color error stamps, I found the article to be enlightening and it may offer some insight for you as well.
I have read the article and am approaching this with more than a grain of salt (but don't let my cardiologist hear that!). On further inquiry, it turns out that the owner had the sheet framed and hung it on her wall!! I am 98% of the opinion that this is probably a sun induced color change.
I have not seen the actual sheet yet, but will try to get to it sometime this week. Will be taking my regular loupe and a 30X scope.
That's a good bet since the current red pigments are notorious for fading out quickly. There are some good, stable reds out there - but they contain bad actors. Mercury and strontium compounds give some long-lasting reds, but they can be nasty in the environment. One of the best orange pigment is uranium-based.
Would not the owner have known that it was red when purchased, and has now changed? If so she would have no reason to bring it to a stamp show for an opinion or appraisal.
It would have to have been in a location of direct sunlight, to fade so quickly, right?
I would say it's more likely an error, and should be expertised.
I still haven't seen the sheet up close yet. I don't know if they asked her if it was red or yellow when she bought it. The "dealers" were at a church bazaar amidst the canned fruits and quilty things. Since they are members of the church they thought they'd see if anyone was interested in stamps. It wasn't really a stamp show or anything like it. Just a gathering in the basement of a Lutheran church!
If I can find no remnants of the magenta ink, my recommendation will be to have it expertized. Without a "good" cert, it is unsaleable as an error. Then the owner can decide on what to do with it! Maybe even if it does show hints of magenta, it may be wise to have it expertized.
Will probably get to see it on Wednesday or Thursday.
Dialysis, damned if you do...dead if you don't 24 Oct 2017 12:00:16pm
re: OKeefe Red Poppy in Yellow?
My opinion is that this is a color changeling (as other have stated sunlight).
The simplest thing to do is get a few of the normal mint stamps and place them in direct sunlight for a week or two. If the red ink is fugitive (and red inks typically are) then the yellow will be left. It will not take more than 30 hours or so in direct sunlight to see it to begin to change.
Keep in mind that the odds are that if there were any yellow 'errors' they would have surfaced before now.
Below is an example of a single stamp that was given this kind of direct sunlight test (left half exposed to direct sunlight). Image courtesy of a poster on SCF forum.
Here are several scans from my OOPS collection/exhibit. These are all chemically induced transformations and are so marked on the reverse of each stamp.
Leen and I had the opportunity to examine the "Yellow" Poppies sheet today. It is very much a sunlight faded occurrence! Immediate examination showed the existense of all the appropriate colors on the plate number - including the 'missing' magenta. Close look at the individual flowers revealed a slight misregistration of the Magenta in relation to the yellow. Apparently there was about a half mm of overlap. Around the upper edge of each flower we could see one or two dots of magenta ink in the gray background. In the photo this shows up as a slightly blurry magenta band on the upper edges of the flowers.
No rarity! No finders fee. But an interesting eyecatcher.