My 1941 Scott catalog, however, matches the album. It assigns the number 129 to the 5c deep blue from 1913. The number 130 is assigned to the 5c bright blue from 1922.
In its single listing in the 2007 catalog, confusingly, Scott has dropped #129 entirely and changes #130 from the 1922 issue to 1913.
All of this presents the "Blue" collector with a problem. Regardless of the catalog, the album has two spaces. Does the revised listing in the 2007 Catalog mean that there never were two different colors actually in circulation? That's going to be a problem if the collector wants to fill every space in the album.
My next step was to search for the stamp(s) through the usual sources (the APS Stamp Store, StampWants, et al). Guess what, it didn't take long to find the 5c stamps in two obviously different shades of blue:
As to sources other than Scott, the Yvert&Tellier Catalogue assigns numbers 148 and 207 to these stamps. Len Thompson's article, "Starred Ceres" (PPSB #111 May 1990) gives a detailed listing for 6 Portuguese colonies, but not Angola which fell out of the scope of the article. Nevertheless, these listings tend to confirm multiple colors for similar issues. His listings are based on the Simoes Ferreira catalogue.
Several collectors on the always helpful rec.collecting.stamps.discuss responded to my question about these issues.Tony Vella says that his "Eládio de Santos lists the 1914 Angola 5c as azul-escuro (dark blue) and the 1922 issue as both azul-claro (light blue) and azul-esverdeado (greenish-blue). Chris kindly provided a list from his Stanley Gibbons 1996 Part 9 catalog:
1914: blue, chalk-surfaced paper, p15x14 (SG 211)
1915-21: deep blue, unsurfaced wove paper, p15x14 (SG 284)
1918: pale blue, ditto (SG 284a)
1924: deep blue, unsurfaced paper, p12x11.5 (SG 306)
1921-26: pale blue, ditto (SG 306a)
(For an interesting thread on Ceres issues of the Portuguese Colonies click here.)
By way of background, the following colonies used the Colonial Ceres key-type: in Africa, these were Angola, Portuguese *Congo*, Cape Verde, *Guiné*, Moçambique, Inhambane, Lourenço Marques, Quelimane, *Tete*, St. Thomas & Prince. In Asia, Portuguese *India*, *Macao*, *Timor*. (Colonies are from John Cross in his article "1913-14 Colonial Ceres: Plate Varieties" (Portu-Info #112 1994).
I checked each of these colonies that used the Ceres key-type and found several still in the 2007 Scott Catalog that have the same color pairing:
Cape Verde
Scott 155 5c deep blue ('14)
Scott 156 5c brt blue ('22)
Macao
Scott 221 10a deep blue ('13')
Scott 222 10a pale blue ('23)
Thompson lists both a 10a dark blue and 10a blue from November 1913 and a 10a ultramarine and 10a blue from 1922.
Portuguese Guinea
Scott 151 5c deep blue ('14)
Scott 152 5c brt blue ('22)
Thompson lists both a 5c blue and pale blue from 1914 and a 5c greenish blue from 1921-22.
St. Thomas and Prince Islands
Scott 205 5c deep blue ('14)
Scott 206 5c brt blue ('22)
Tete
Scott 31 5c deep blue ('14)
Thompson lists a 5c blue and 5c light blue from 1914.
Why did Scott reduce the Angola 5c to a single shade? One possibility is that the colors were felt to be a consequence of the type of paper used and not the use of two different inks. Scott notes that "Two kinds of paper, chalky-surfaced paper and ordinary, were used..." Additionally, Cross states that "the values of especially the first issuance were reprinted many times to replenish depleted stocks. This resulted in a while host of paper, perforation and (where applicable) star varieties for primarily the major colonies."
Why did Scott drop the Angola pair but not the multiple colors for Cape Verde, Macao, Portuguese Guinea or St. Thomas and Prince Islands? My bet is that Scott at some point decided to simplify the Ceres listings for Angola but never got around to doing the same for the other colonies listed above. If so, the "Blue-per" is in the catalog, not the album! IMO the two shades are sufficiently distinctive and available that Scott should restore #129 to the catalog.
In any event, I now own the 5c in both shades so I can remove that roadblock in my quest to complete the "Blue" International.
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