General Philatelic/Gen. Discussion : difference between "fly specking" and errors?
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Harvey I think, therefore I am - I think! 15 Mar 2021 02:53:07pm
I used to collect Canadian errors and have quite a few of the ones that are recognized in Scott's, or wherever. I see certain threads about things like minor color shifts and small spots on stamps. I spent a few years staring at stamps looking for any differences I could find. Occasionally I'd find something really good, I found my first "missing bird on totem pole" that way. But mostly the stuff was really minor. How do you really know if something is eventually going to qualify as an error. Maybe I'm wrong, but a real error will eventually, at least, make it to a specialized album. Small dots of color and minor color shifts, even though they look interesting in an album, will probably never have increased monetary value, not that that's really important, or show up as an a,b,c,...in a catalog. I realize faults on plates are worth getting, but where do we draw the line between an error and an anomaly? Not trying to say that small differences are not worth having, I just want an opinion.
usually Errors are restricted to things that should be there but are COMPLETELY ABSSENT. So if Red in the two-color flag over white house (US 29c stamp) is absent completely, it's an error. If the red is somewhere else, it's a freak (misregistration, actually). So if ANY red is present on the stamp, it's not an error.
Ditto with perfs; if one can see any perf indents, it's a freak, not an error, because the perforators were there, just not strong enough.
Specks tend to be extra ink that got deposited somehow, and seldom qualify as errors.
hope that helps; ask if you want more clarification
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