Fugitive Ink and Scott #R183

Unused Scott R183, $3 Lake block of 4,

 with fugitive ink that's yet to go fugitive

"It wasn't me, it was the one-armed man!" said Harrison Ford's character, Dr. Richard Kimble, in the film The Fugitive.  Kimble, falsely convicted for the murder of his wife, escapes a prison bus and leads the police on a 90 minute chase scene while he works to prove it was in fact the one-armed man who did it.  R183 isn't nearly as exciting.  But the stamp was printed with something called fugitive ink.  So it does have something in common with Dr. Kimble.  R183 is uncommon, and few collectors have more than one copy if any at all in which to compare stamps and color condition.  So for many collectors, the only reason for awareness of the use of fugitive ink on this stamp comes from two entries for R183 in the recent versions of the Scott US Specialized Catalogue: 1) After the entry for the color of the stamp, which is the color lake, is the entry "fugitive ink" in parentheses;  and 2) the little note at the bottom of the entry for R183 that says, Warning: The ink on No. R183 will run in water.  There is no further elaboration or comment.  

Over the years I've managed to accumulate the unused block of four above.  I also have a few used copies off-piece with which to examine the fugitive quality of the ink.  The conditions of the used stamps exposed to water are all very different.  Prompting this post was a stamp recently sent to me by David Thompson -- it is the stamp at the bottom left in the examples below.  This stamp is clearly one that has been affected by the combination of water and fugitive ink to make the ink run, much like the stamp on the bottom on the right, which is even lighter in color.  The two bottom stamps are no longer lake in color.  

The top four stamps represent a progression in just how fugitive the ink can be.  The stamp on the upper left, with the "ATCH" cancel (a cancel for the broker William D. Hatch), appears to have never seen any water.  The second scan shows the back of all the stamps, in the same sequence as the scan showing the front of the stamps.  By looking at its back, it appears that Mr. Hatch's stamp was removed without any water -- gum remains and some of the original document is still attached.  So the stamp appears much as the block of four above.  

The top right stamp shows some fading, but its back shows what almost appear to be bloody scars of the ink that has run through the cut cancel while the lake color in front is largely retained.  The middle stamp on the right is lighter appearing on the front than the stamp above it, yet the reddishness of the cut cancel is not as great.  Oddly, the perfined stamp at the lower right has no bleeding appearance around the edge of the perfins, though the ink ran on this stamp more than any other.  And lastly, the bottom left stamp has its back stained pink from the fugitive ink, which hasn't happened on the other 4 stamps that were likely soaked at some point.  

How could soaking produce so many different results?  What is going on here?  Scott's note tells us that think ink will run in water.  But all these stamps represent very different outcomes from a soak.

Consulting Richard Friedberg, I received this answer as a possible explanation for the different conditions of these stamps:  

"if the stamp is carefully put face up in a shallow dish not much water gets to the side with the ink and it doesn't run much if at all. If the stamp remains face down for a longer period in water it will run a bit/a lot."  

So this answer could very well be the explanation I'm looking for.  But what it doesn't help explain is the opaqueness of Scott's note.  Maybe a catalog is not the place to explain how to manage a stamp like this with an unusual and idiosyncratic ink.  But the note only demands that more questions be asked, and that leaves the collector hanging.  For many, a used R183 off cover with little sign of ink fading or dispersion creates nothing but questions.  Just a brief note as to how off-cover, varyingly damaged stamps might exist would be a good idea for the catalogue for two reasons: 1) to explain what we see in the examples above; and 2) to explain how one might safely remove examples from documents in the future (don't do this please - R183s are so much better on document - unless you must).

Lastly, I have a 1971 copy of the Scott US Specialized catalogue.  There is no mention of fugitive ink or its tendency to run when in contact with water.  Maybe old-time revenue collectors just knew these kinds of things.