20 CENTESIMI

As stated in the general introduction I will limit myself to list and represent (when I have available the images) only the basic color families, leaving out all the infinite catalogues shades that I list a at the end of the page just for knowledge and completeness (click here to go to this section now). I adopted the scheme used by most catalogues to divide the shades on the basis of the year of issue. In the "Going deep" section is explaned how to distinguish the compositions used during the different printing runs.
This piece was in use up to December 31th 1862 (but tolerate also after this date) due to the reduction from 20 to 15 cents. of the first-rate letters.
ATTENTION: the stamps here presented do have just an INDICATIVE value in relationship to the color shades: any system composed by scanner + monitor + video will give back colors even quite different from the ones I have chosen. For this reason the scans in this page CANNOT be used as absolute reference but only as approximate indication of the shades.

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We can group schematically the 20 cents shades as follows:
(NOTE: some color shades are present in different years, printed with different printing runs)

Shade	Used from	Composition	Image
Cobal	June 1855	1st	Fig. 1
Sky blue	July 1855	1st	Fig. 2
Gray blue	January 1857	1st	Fig. 3
Ultramarine blue	February 1857	1st	Fig. 4
Indigo	April 1857	1st	Fig. 5
Ultramarine cobalt	August 1857	1st	Fig. 6
Deep blue	March 1859	1st	Fig. 7
Gray blue/cobalt	April 1860	1st	Fig. 8
Very deep blue	November 1860	1st	Fig. 9
Sky blue	January 1861	2nd	Fig. 10
Cobalt (many shades)	January 1861	2nd	Fig. 11
Ultramarine blue	1861	2nd	Fig. 12
Indigo	August 1861	2nd	Fig. 13
Metallic indigo	September 1861	2nd	Fig. 14

 

Fig. 1: bright cobalt shade, 1st comp.	Fig. 2: sky blue shade, 1st comp.
(Back to the color-table)

Fig. 3: graysh blue shade, 1st comp.	Fig. 4: deep ultramarine blue shade, 1st comp.
(Back to the color-table)

 

Fig. 5: indigo shade, 1st comp.	Fig. 6: ultramarine cobalt shade, 1st comp.
(Back to the color-table)

 

Fig. 7: deep blue shade, 1st comp.	Fig. 8: graysh blue shade, 1st comp.
(Back to the color-table)

Fig. 9: very dark blue shade, 1st comp.	Fig. 10: sky blue, 2nd comp.
(Back to the color-table)

Fig. 11: cobalt shade, 2nd comp.	Fig. 12: ultramarine blue shade, 2nd comp.
(Back to the color-table)

Fig. 13: indigo shade, 2nd comp.	Fig. 14: violet metallic indigo (this peculiarity is visible observing the piece with radial light)
(Back to the color-table)

 

Catalogued color shades (as per Sassone, in branchets the composition)

Shades of 1855
Cobalt (I)
Bright cobalt (I)
Deep cobalt (I)
Milky bright cobalt (I)
Dull milky cobalt (I)
Greenish cobalt (I)
Sky blue(I)
Pale sky blue (I)
Dull sky blue (I)
Very dark ultramarine sky blue (I)

Shades of 1857-58
Graysh blue (I)
Dark ultramarine blue (I)
Indigo (I)
Dark indigo (I)

Shades of 1859
Dark blue (I)
Ultramarine cobalt (I)
Ultramarine indigo (I)

Shades of 1860
Extremely dark blue (I)
Blue (I)
Gray cobalt (I)
Gray blue (I)

Shades of 1861
Bright sjy blue (II)
Sky blue (II)
Graysh sky blue (II)
Ultramarine blue (II)
Graysh cobalt (II)
Cobalt (II)
Dark greenish cobalt (II)
Greenish cobalt (II)
Bright cobalt (II)
Dark ultramarine cobalt (II)

Shades of 1862
Indigo (II)
Dark violet indigo (II)
Bright indigo (II)