So An Interesting M&m Came In Today...

I've been designing/producing the website of a dealer friend of mine and he sent me half a dozen M&Ms as part payment. One of them is this R156C. The cool part is it has an owners stamp of H.W. Holcombe, who wrote this book: https://books.google.com/books/abou...AACAAJ&hl=en

If it's genuine, which I imagine it is, it's sort of like having the autograph of a celebrity.

Looks like you get a fingerprint with it. Mr Holcombe's?

Maybe! Sorry that should read RS156C

That is Henry Holcombe's handstamp. It is also a genuine pink paper.

BTW, that is not a fingerprint on the reverse, although it does look like one. That is the engraving of the coat visible through the paper on the back.

Wow that is cool, any added value for that name on back, or is the pink paper the value?

It adds minor interest, but little actual value to the stamp. Holcombe did this a lot.

Bart - can you describe the qualities of pink paper, besides the obvious hue. I've heard to be careful of dyed stamps. As far as the "fingerprint" is concerned, I can not even see that with the naked eye. Amazing what a scan will reveal.

For one thing, genuine pink papers almost always have offset on the back. It's very unusual for the other papers to have any, although silk and watermarked occasionally have some. It's very rare that old paper would have any, being a hard paper. Obviously the presence of silk threads or a watermark would disprove the pink.
Pink papers also often have a few dark pink or red threads mixed in the paper. I believe they were a result of the bags of dye being opened just before they were added to the pulp mixture, and they did not have time to become thoroughly pulped before the paper was pressed and dried.
The pink is not a particularly stable color, so shades of pink vary greatly, especially after all this time. Some are quite pale and not easily spotted without experience. Supposedly the pink paper was originally purchased to be used for printing special tax stamps, which changed color every year in the mid 1870's but was found wanting for that purpose. Perhaps it was because the paper was not a uniform shade.

5431c was the old Scott catalog number from about pre-1940 or so.

Thanks Bart, I really appreciate it.

Here are the other 3 pinks from the group. Interesting you can see some of the threads Bart mentions, especially in the RS155C.

More "fingerprints" too. Nice pink paper M&Ms, southpaw.

Very nice!

Joking correct???

No, Kevin. See above. As revcollector said, what looks like it might be a partial "fingerprint" on the back of the stamps is actually "the engraving of the coat visible through the paper on the back."