Most collectors are aware of the rarity of the pink and pigeon blood pink varieties of the 3 Cent 1861. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Though nearly all of the 3 cent stamps issued between August 1861 and 1867 are thought to have been produced using the same cochineal pigment, the 3 Cent 1861 (Number # 64 and 65) is found in a very wide array of distinctive and beautiful shades some of which, like the pigeon blood pink, are among the rarest and most sought after US Classics.
Everyone knows about and writes about the pinks. Pinks are pretty rare and can sell for $1,000 or more; pigeon bloods for more than that. The "rose" (#65), however, catalogs for only $3.00. Therefore, a lot of literature and attention is devoted to distinguishing between rose and pink. There is separate catalog number for the pink (#64) and hence a space in every album. Demand is relatively high and thus so is the price.
Getting a good pink is not too difficult. All the major dealers and auction venues have them available, for the right price. Of course there is always the chance youll find a pink or pigeon blood hidden in a large lot, or on a yellow cover that distracts the eye away from the pink, or hidden behind a layer of sulpheretting. The search can be fun, but you need not stop there. In fact, you probably should not.
While #65 is plentiful, and often quite unremarkable, there are several shade varieties that are every bit as appealing, or more, and in some instances even rarer than the pinks. And they are harder to find because they werent set aside and culled from large accumulations by dealers and collectors decades ago.
August 1861 Shades
The Initial Printings of this stamp were quite varied. It is quite clear the printers were scrambling to get the color right. These printings are the source of the pinks, rose pinks, and several other scarce shades of rose including brilliant rose, bright rose, and salmon rose.
In addition, the pinks and rose pinks themselves are also quite varied. Complicating matters, there are several shades that dont appear to be either rose or pink that we need to study more to classify and understand.
The rose shades have elements of yellow or tan while the pinks are much purer tints of various shades of red.
The tinting found in the pinks is due a relatively wide distribution of red particles across relatively white space- between particles and/or thinning of the dark red pigment yielding a wash or halo adjacent to the pigment particles. These halo or wash areas can be light red, pink, magenta or even violet.
The areas of thin pigment may be due to the partial suspension of relatively small particles in the printing medium or even the result solution of red pigment in a more or less clear medium, or both.
There are pinks that are so red they really dont look pink. They are under-tinted usually because the particles are so large or clumped that there is little room for the white space. The result is a much deeper, redder overall look.
In the roses the space between red particles contain varying amounts of yellow, greenish or tan colorants and very few if any pink or magenta washes. These yellows colors may the printing medium (a varnish) or they might be pigments leaching out of some of the red pigment particles which contain an orange component or a contaminant.
Occasionally both yellow and magenta washes are present. Such stamps are hard to classify as rose or pink. This condition is typical of the the Rose Pink (#64b)
Carmine Rose
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Brilliant Rose
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Bright Rose
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Salmon Rose
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Pigeon Blood Pink
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Lavender Pink
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Rose Pink
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1861 Shades
(September - December 1861) The experimentation that clearly began in the initial pre-shipment press run continues into December. It is sometime in this period that the carmine roses appear, many of which are quite rich and relatively well saturated in color. This implies the printers were dialing back on the white filler, or using a different medium, emulsifier or drying agents which concentrated the pigment. The ink on these is usually well dispersed and coherent.
Some of these carmine stamps are quite brown, or have a brown appearance. This implies that some contaminate is creeping into some of the press runs, or are at the end of a press run when the inks from the bottom of the barrel are reaching the press. As many browned/greyed versions as there were, there are also beautiful pristine versions that appear to have been produced late in 1861 and in the early part of 1862.
There are also several pale shades found in this period. However it cannot be known for sure if these were leftovers from the initial August printing. These shades seem to have some carmine components but it does not dominate the stamp. In this phase there does seem to be more than one source of cochineal one more violet and the others more red, and perhaps one more red orange.
Carmine
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Salmon
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Pinkish
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Carmines and Reds of Late 1861 and early 1862
Once the printers settled on the carmine formulation they seem to have stuck with it for several months. I have seen carmine shades with cancels as early as August 1861, but they seem to become quite dominant a little later and continue to appear in the early months of 1862. This "color space" is very close to red rose and brownish red rose and we see these being produced at roughly the same time. Personally, I think the distinction is one of gradation and does not represent a change in "philosophy".
However, by 1862 the more common colors are red rose, brownish red roses, while many of the carmine roses of '61 also continue to be produced in 1862. More significantly, in some press runs (in early 1862), we find instances of remarkably deep and very rich red and carmine shades appearing.
Included in the latter group are the raspberry shades, a lake red, carmine reds, rose carmine, carmine, lake carmine (not to be confused with a later carmine lake), and the bright brown red. Many of these shades have rarity factors equal to or exceeding the pinks.
Some carmine shades appear to be susceptible to "oxidation" or sulphuretting.
Impressions tend to be sharp and clear. One exception is the lake carmine shade which has a poor impression very similar to the carmine lake shade of 1864. The two shades may be closely related in composition - both being outliers exhibiting significant differences in both color and appearance in comparison with contemporaneous production lots.
Bright Brown Red
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Rose Red
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Brownish Red Rose
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Deep Carmine Rose
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Lake Red
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Carmine
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Lake Carmine
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Deep Rose Carmine
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Roses of 1862
While the carmine family of stamps appear to have been produced quite a while, we start to see a new shade appearing sometime in early 1862. This eventually became the dominant color for the rest of 1862.
This color is referred to as the standard rose. However, these stamps are not really rose. Rose is a tint of a red that is half way between red and magenta. Such stamps may exist but I think they would belong in the previous category. Instead the standard rose stamp is what you can call a tone - a greyed red. It appears to be the result of a blend of cochineal with both a bluish and a red component, but there are significant areas of yellow or tan interspersed with the red particles, overlaying them in some case, and in the wash areas leading away from the red particle tend to be more orange than the red.
These yellowish areas might be coming from a particular cochineal blend, or from the printing medium. Visually, the evidence suggests both.
This phenomenon occurs in most #65s but in the standard rose it is particularly dominant. The blue in the rose and yellow or yellow tan combine to form a green that acts as a complement to the red. This creates a red shade which with the addition of white filler becomes a tone.
The result can be quite striking or rather pedestrian. The goal is to find a pretty rose with clear color. In addition to these lovely and vibrant pieces, there are some press runs that are quite rich, deep or intense. The intense rose has an added luminescence and brightness that distinguishes it from the normal. These intense roses are nearly as uncommon as the pinks and have a stunning appearance. Thus the rose as common as it is is a place to focus your shade hunt
Standard Rose
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Rich Rose
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Intense Rose
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True Rose
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Pinkish and Pale Roses of 1863
The claret formulation appears to have been modified to make it look pinker or more like the earlier shades. This produced a lot of different shades the prettiest of which is pinkish rose. The pinkish rose is sometimes mistaken for and sold as a pink or rose pink. In addition in this period we find coral roses, lilac roses, pale and pastel roses.
These paler, pinker colors may be an attempt to get back to a more rosy appearance - more like the earlier roses. They are oddly sandwiched in between the much deeper maroon-like colors of the lakes and clarets, and the rich red roses and brownish red roses of mid 1863.
A similar phenomenon occurred in 1864 when a very rosy color appeared amidst much darker lakes and claret like colors. Perhaps both these color phases represent the work of a different pressman who worked sporadically on the 3 cent stamp when demand required addition presses be brought into production.
Pinkish Rose
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Pale Rose
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Coral Rose
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Pastel Rose
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Bright Lilac Rose
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Lilac Rose
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Brown Lilac
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Red and Brown Roses of 1863
In mid-1863 mainstream production shifted back to a color much like the red roses of mid 1862 but richer, somewhat browner and more varied. Several very striking and rare shades emerged in this phase including the elusive Indian Red, deep red roses, brown reds, and other lovely warm shades.
Deep Rose Red
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Bright Rose Red
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Dark Brown Red
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Ultra Deep Rose
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Indian Red
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Deep Brownish Red
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Clarets and Lakes of 1863
At some point the primary standard rose shade deepened. Carmine, and perhaps more violet components began to dominate yielding two primary shade families- the Clarets which are on the blue side and a deep red Lake Rose.
The claret is indeed wine colored and is quite scarce. It appears to have made a debut late in 62 or very early in 63. The goal here is to actually find one, and to differentiate it from a similar shade that appeared in 1864, and from the more common but still scarce reddish clarets that appeared later in the year and like a blend of the claret and lake rose shades.
The early Clarets appear to morph in the direction of mauve and into grayish regions. There are probably four or five different variants in this color family. They seem to be associated with usages in the first half 1863.
The Lake Rose appeared in a large printing (order) in early in 1863. Lake Rose is much redder than the claret but probably related. The basic color is a crimson or maroon. This is usually quite muted and dull. But there are much brighter and deeper versions that are stunning and quite rare comparable to the Carmine Lake (#66).
The Tuscan Red and Deep Claret appear to be deep versions of lake rose but are far more scarce.
The Crimson on the other hand is an aberration. In color it seems to straddle the clarets and the lakes but is none the less quite distinct, and the impression in these stamps is invariably mottled. This seems to be the result in the failure of a drying agent or emulsifier - and this in turn may be affecting the color.
Common Lake Rose
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Reddish Claret Rose
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Claret
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Deep Claret
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Dull Brownish Claret
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Grayish Claret
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Tuscan Red (Lake)
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Deep Lake
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Crimson
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Lakes and Clarets of 1864
In 1864 we see some carmine dominant (as opposed to red dominant) shades appear. Normally` they tend to be darker and greyer than the earlier carmines ('62). A few though are quick rich and bright. No one of them is particularly common and there are many variations ranging brownish lakes to full lakes, from rosy lakes and lilacs to clarets.
Normally this formulation lends itself to sharp, sometimes proof-like impressions. Again some rare and very rare shades emerge brown lakes, brick red, lake brown. The carmine lake shade makes a brief appearance in '64 - only two certified copies exist though there are probably more in private collections.
Bright Lilac Rose
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Deep Lilac Rose
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Pale Claret
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Deep Claret
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Claret Rose
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Pale Lake Rose
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Bright Brown Lake
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Brown Lake
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Lake Brown
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Brownish Claret
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Brick Orange
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Carmine Lake
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Warm Late Shades of 1865-66
In 1865 and 1866 the color shifts to the warm side. Stamps are browner and redder and they are somewhat muted, dull or pale. One hypothesis is that iron oxide pigments were introduced in this period, either alone or in combination with the earlier organic pigment. Thus in 1865 and 1866 we see dull red, brown reds, bright rose browns and ultimately in 1866, browns. These color names evoke images of colors you find much earlier, such as the brown reds you find in 1863, but in real life they loo very different - duller and flatter. You need only to acquire a few dated covers to see the difference.
Pale Brown Red
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Dull Red Rose
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Bright Rose Red
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Dull Red
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Light Brown
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Brown
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Grill Shades of 1868
There are several shades associated with the grilled stamps that are found on stamps without grills. I dont know why there is no catalog recognition of un-grilled versions of #88 and #94 but the stamps do exist and are quite rare. Most are as hard to find as the pinks. Some of these shades such lake red and orange red - are truly beautiful and highly desirable.
Pale Rose
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Rose Red
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Dull Rose Red
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Brownish Rose Red
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Lake Red
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Orange Red
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