Rockminer~
Congratulations on bringing that cast-off bulb back from certain death and making it prosper! It is a spectacular red whatever it is.
Correctly identifying specific hybrids can be daunting and no group more challenging than those that are a solid color. Looking on the web for pictures to help can add more confusion since we don't necessarily know if we are seeing a correctly ID plant or a name applied that seemed "close enough". No doubt you have heard of mis-identified hybrids being received from vendors quite often. That doesn't help things at all.
Trying to match the color without a standard is next to impossible.
So what factors or characteristics can we use with your red (or other solids)?
Flower size, number of flowers per scape, tepal shape, overall bloom shape or form, attitude of the bloom (held upwards, straight out or drooping), pedicel length (the little stem the flower is on) and its color, if any, scape height (though this can be so variable as to not help much), and sometimes pollen color. There are other characteristic that might be checked, but we have plenty to work with here.
We also need a good description of what it is we are checking our flower against. Until veronica Read's book appeared, there was next to nothing with much detail. Even her descriptions could stand some filling out here and there. Sometimes the descriptions by vendors or distributors are sorely lacking but for a general sketch that adds nothing more than what we already know.
I went round and round with a small-flowered red that was supposed to be Pamela but wasn't, as far as I could tell. In trying determine what it was, the red pedicel color was most important. The telling factor was the high bloom count. As best as I can determine, the 6-8 blooms per scape make it 'Top Choice', which seems to be a "mistake" by the grower not the seller, since they didn't offer Top Choice at the time.
So what might you have?
What if I say, I'm as uncertain as you, maybe more so? Read has 21 hybrids listed in the "Red Large Singles" section, and that is from about 4 years ago. The thing I find most frustrating in trying to use her written descriptions is a lack of real color references. There are horticultural color charts that might be referenced but what Read gives are written ones. I often wonder if I know a color by the same name as someone else... do I know when I am seeing scarlet and not bight crimson etc...
So Read has "currant red", "orient red", "orange red", "raspberry red", "purple red", "wine red", "blood red", "dark red", "blackcurrant red" "bright red", "vermilion", and the succinct "red" as colors in the large red group.
I haven't seen most of the reds she lists, so I might miss out on seeing something in your flower that I would recognize if I had grown them myself. And in picking one over another, I may tend to choose from those I have actually seen, and that might discount a good possibility.
Anywho--it looks very much like the classic 'Red Lion'. The superb full, open, rounded form matches RL with its "Leopoldii" background and is also known for its vigor. The bloom count is usually 4 but sometimes there are only three buds per scape on mature bulbs. There's nice blushing on the pedicels, (not actual pigmentation), and that happens with RL when it gets good strong light. RL averages @7" across but is frequently just shy of that.
Again, there are other possibilities and maybe someone will see it as another cultivar and give their thoughts here too. I know I could be mistaken.
If you knew that the bulb was a cast-off from a garden center and could get a look at what they were stocking just prior to your finding the bulb, that might easily settle the question.
And yes, I have gone that far in order to ID a bulb! :-)
R.
