New color-omitted error on U.S. 1985 18¢ Washington coil stamp found in 2024 Siegel auction

By Charles Snee

A new color-omitted error of the United States 1985 18¢ George Washington coil stamp (Scott 2149) has been discovered.

The error, the first of its kind for the nearly four-decade-old stamp, occurs on the far right stamp in a strip of seven that U.S. plate number coil specialist Robert Thompson purchased from Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries’ July 23-25 sale of United States stamps.

Thompson, who paid $767 for the strip, alerted Linn’s Stamp News about the new error via email on Aug. 10.

“As far as I know, it is the first report of this error,” Thompson said.

In its description of the strip in the sale catalog, Siegel noted that “the magenta color is normal in the left stamp and progressively reduces until it is completely omitted in the right stamp.”

According to a Professional Stamp Experts certificate issued May 28, a copy of which Thompson provided to Linn’s, the strip “is genuine unused, o.g. [original gum], never hinged, coil strip of seven with magenta and yellow progressively fading out from left to right, the right [seventh] stamp with magenta completely omitted.”

The fading of the magenta and yellow inks was caused by ink wells running dry on the Bureau of Engraving and Printing’s Andreotti press that printed the stamp.

A yellow-omitted error did not occur on any of the stamps in the strip because they all show traces of yellow ink.

Scott catalog editor-in-chief Jay Bigalke confirmed that the new magenta-omitted error will be listed as Scott 2149f in the 2025 edition of the Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers that will be published in October.

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