The Medio Peso Rose Red Error

The Cause of the
Error

The Medio Peso Rose Red Error
is usually described as a “color error,” but actually resulted from
the erroneous transfer of Medio Peso designs on the lithographic stone for the Una-peseta.
The printer consistently used yellow ink for the Medio Peso and red ink for the
Una-peseta. However, since the stone of the Una-peseta included at least five
Medio Peso transfers, the resulting Medio Peso stamps were printed in red, not
yellow. The first reports of the error appeared in June 1858, and post offices
were instructed to treat the Medio Peso stamps printed in red as the normal Una-peseta.  However, the decree of June 18, 1858, declared the Medio
Peso value unnecessary, and the government stopped distributing the sheets
printed in yellow. This might have been part of an effort to control the
situation involving the errors. 1

Type E Medio Peso Rose Red Error from the Smithsonian
National Postal Museum Collection, dated 20 May 1859

Chacas is a small town in the Department
of Ancash, Province
of Asuncion.  In
1792 the population was 1,657 and today it is approximately 6,000.  The
post office was established  there
in the early 1800's.  The oldest cancel known is from 1808.
Surprisingly in the postal reorganization of 1853 it was designated a
Subprincipal office.  On December
30, 1864 it was demoted to a Receptoria, a lower class of
office where it remains today.  The office has been in continuous
operation for 200 years.

The Una-peseta
Lithographic Stone

The exact composition of the Una-peseta
stone is not known. It is possible more than one printing stone was used. By
studying examples of the Medio Peso Error, specialists have deduced that at
least one of the 10-subject bloc reports erroneously included a row of five of
the Medio Peso denomination. Some believe that the bloc report containing the
Medio Peso errors was transferred to either row 8, 10, 12 or 14 on a stone of
160 subjects. Without knowing the stamps’ exact location in a printed
sheet, examples of the Medio Peso Error are identified by the transfer types
(Types A, B, C, D and E).

The normal Una-peseta bloc
report consisted of two horizontal rows of five, all of the same denomination,
which philatelists have classified as ten different numbered types, based on
tiny distinguishing marks in each transfer. The correct arrangement of the
types in the bloc report became known after the type numbers were assigned,
which accounts for the non-sequential order of the bloc report (top row 10 - 1 -
4 - 7 - 3, bottom row 5- 2 - 8 - 6 - 9). 2

Type “C” (left) and Type
“D” (right) Medio Peso Rose Red Error

from the Smithsonian National Postal
Museum Collection

The two errors, identified as
Types C and D, were in the third and fourth positions of the bottom row of a
10-unit bloc report. Normally, the stamps above these two positions would be
Types 4 and 7. However, they were Types 8 and 6, indicating Types 5 -2 - 8 - 6 -
9 were in the top row of the error bloc report rather than their normal
position at the bottom. This meant not only were the five Medio Peso
denominations transferred to the stone, but the entire bloc report of ten was
uniquely configured with the bottom row positioned at the top and the error
transfers at the bottom.

Normal

10

1

4

7

3

Normal

5

2

8

6

9

Error

5

2

8

6

9

Error

a

b

c

d

e

Normal

10

1

4

7

3

Normal

5

2

8

6

9

Bloc Report Diagram Showing the Plate
Positions of the Medio Peso Rose Red Error

Hausburg 3
described the errors as:

A colored spot below the lower right corner

The right vertical frame-line projects slightly
below the lower frame-line. There is a small colored spot in the lower
margin below the “RE” of “CORREOS.”

There is a faint white line cutting the lines of
shading and the frame-line below the second “R” of “CORREOS.”

There is a colored spot inside the lower
frame-line below and to the right of the “E” of
“CORREOS.”

This has no peculiarity.

Just one intermediate block
of the Una-peseta printing stone was damaged and repaired.  This repair gave rise to the most famous
variety in Peruvian philately, the Medio Peso Red Rose Error.

Notes:

1. Bargholtz, Percy,
2001, PERU: The 1858 Medio Peso Error of Colour, An
Inventory, A Mainsheet Special Edition No. 1, Brian Moorhouse, Peterborough, England.

2. Seigel Auction Galleries, The Islander Collection of the Rarest and
Most Outstanding Stamps of South America, June 6, 2008, pp.
32 – 34.

3. Hausburg, L.L.R., 1917, The “Plating” of the Early
Lithographed Stamps of Peru,
London Philatelist,
26, 101-110.

This article was published in
Collectors Club Philatelist, Vol. 88,
No. 1:21 -22.

Thomas Lera

Winton M. Blount Chair in
Research

Smithsonian National Postal
Museum