A Perfed 7?

Whoa, nelly. What's this? A perfed 7?

This image was taken from, ummm, an auction site. It is described as a 7. The scan of the perf gauge has been sized to be the same resolution as the image. With the gauge overlaying the stamp, it looks like 12.5. But not every hole lines up.

Is this a fabeled "unofficial perf," or a misidentified 20, or (shudder) a fake. The seller is not calling it a perfed 7, just to be clear.

The "Chicago Perforation" was a perf 12.5 applied in Chicago starting in about 1854. The perforating machine was designed by Dr. Elijah W. Hadley, a Chicago Dentist. These perforations are known on the 3 cent (Scott 11, 11A) and the 1 cent from plate 1 late and plate 2. There are 19 documented copies of the 1 cent. The perfs on the image posted here look too clean cut to be a Chicago Perforation.
Edit: Cancel does not look like "CHICAGO". Genuine Scott 7 with Chicago Perf shown below

But it's not a 15.5 perf. If it's a fake, it was either the dumbest faker in the world--why not choose a semi-decently centered 7--or the subtlest. And nobody is trying to get the big bucks.

Here it is next to a bona-fide Chicago perf:



And next to a garden variety #24:



As regards Chicago cancel, here's Siegel's lot 1137. On the stamp in question, there's very clearly an "H" and what could arguably be a "C" to the left of it.



As I'm sick of speculating from looking at a fuzzy low res scan, and my curiosity is completely piqued, I went ahead and bought the fool stamp (at a discount, I might add). Any interest in the community at looking at the high-res scans when it comes in?

Oh, and as re plating, Has to be the 10th column on the left pane to get that straight right edge, right? In studying slingshotvenus, I'm guessing 20L2 or 60L2.

I'm looking forward to seeing the hi-res scans. Please keep us posted.

Show us the scan please

The stamp-in-question arrived in my mailbox day before yesterday. It's a sound, good looking stamp. Let's have some fun!

In the following discussion, please let's remember the following:

1. I've been into philately since November 2010. So yes, I am a newbie, a greenhorn, an amatuer, inexperienced, an FNG. I don't intend to represent myself otherwise.


2. In front of every statement, assume that I have prefaced it with, "I think" or "my best guess" or "I don't have enough experience to say for certain, but." If we assume it up here, I won't have to write these qualifying phrases over and over again down there.

So is it a Scott #7 with unofficial "Chicago" perforations? According to the Philatelic Foundations page on the The One Cent Stamp Of 1851 & 1857:



The Siegel listings further mention that the stamps come from plate 1 late or 2.

Necessary:

• Plate 1 late or 2


• Type II or IV (#7 or #9)


• 12.5 gauge perforations

Helpful:

• Chicago postmark

To begin with, here is a 1200dpi scan of the stamp-in-question:

Type II

So the first question, is it a type II? The stamp has a straight right edge, so that should mean it came from the 10th column on the left pane of the plate. Looking at The 1¢ Franklin Plating Archive for stamps in the tenth column of plate 2, I have a candidate in 20L2. In particular, ornaments A and K look the same, and there is a mark on the Left Full Plume that looks the same. Unfortunately, the other 20L2 markers are cut off. The Plume mark also appears on 60L2, but the K ornament is different.



Even if 20L2 is not right, in comparing the Side Ornaments at Left to 20L2 and other type II relief A examples, I am going to say it is a type II, relief A from plate 2.

Perf 12.5

The salient feature of this variety is the perforations. Any argument against this stamp being a Chicago perf is going to have to address the fact that this stamp has perforations that gauge 12.5. I have shown this in the posts above. Now that I have the stamp-in-question, here are some photographs of the stamp on top of a gauge.



So it gauges 12.5, are they fake? From what I've read about identifying fake perfs, here are some things to look for:

• Flat perf tops that would correspond to the straight edge of the stamp that had been cut into. Stamps that have been torn apart would have fuzzy tops. Which is not to say any perf with a flat top is a fake, but it is a warning flag.


• Perf holes that are the wrong size as compared to the other sides of the stamp or stamps of the same issue


• Perf holes that are irregularly spaced


• Perf holes that are not aligned

Here's a 3200 dpi detail of some perf tops. Looks pretty fuzzy to me.



The perf tops on the bottom left edge are straight, but the rightmost perfs on the bottom are fuzzy-topped.



There is some irregularity to the spacing and alignment of the holes, but compared to known examples of the species, irregularity seems typical of the Chicago perf, which makes sense to me. Chicago perfs were perfed before perfing was cool; the equipment was probably quite primitive. Once again, here is the stamp-in-question compared to Siegel's lot 1136, but with my scan.



And so, I'll assert the perfs are not faked.

Has this stamp ever been in Chicago?

Not every example of a one cent Chicago perf on Siegel's site has a cancel from which you can identify a city, but of those that do, most come from Chicago. The cover example comes from Cherry Valley, Ill. Russ says in his post above that the cancel on the stamp-in-question doesn't look a Chicago cancel. Let's do some experimentation and research.

First, I want to see what's really there for a cancel. Here, using Photoshop's Color Range feature--whereby you select just a particular range of colors--I have endeavored to mitigate the blues and enhance the blacks and grays from the cancel. The enhanced image below shows C-H-I. We also get part of the date: the first letter of the month, A (I think the second letter is a U), and the first digit of the day, 2.



In searching the Philately Foundation's certificate database, I found certs for several on-cover #11s with Chicago perfs and Chicago cancels. Below are cancel details of four cover images from the database. Apparently there was more than one cancel being used in Chicago at the time.



The letter spacing in the fourth one looked about right. The image below shows cutting out the cancel from the cover, reducing the opacity of the clipping so that it is transparent and overlaying it on the stamp-in-question. I then lined up the circle and rotated it until the "H"s line up. Showing and hiding the layer shows that the C and I line up perfectly. QED.



And so:

• the stamp is a type II from plate 2


• it has 12.5 gauge perfs


• the stamp was cancelled in Chicago

Take it away, Russ!

otto, much better pics. Based on the new scans I agree that it is a Chicago cancel. Tomorrow I will try to look closer at the perfs and compare to known Chicago Perfs. Definitely an interesting stamp.

otto, I looked at several certified Chicago Perfs today and compared the perforations to yours. Your stamp showed that the left side perfs angle to the right going from top to bottom by 1/2 the perf hole. Additionally the perfs on the top are aligned 1/2 hole to the left of the bottom perfs. The alignment on all but one example were basically vertical on the sides and top and bottom perf holes aligned.

The one example that was different was almost identical in pattern and alignment to your example, the left side was angled 1/2 hole but the right side was vertical. It is to bad the the right side is cut. You can look at this example at Siegel sale 1006 lot 1055.

After comparing your examples to the certified stamps I was unable to find anything that would prove it not to be a Chicago Perf. There is a 1851 1 cent expert (Dick Celler) that has experience with the Chicago perf that visits the Visual Stamp Club that might be able to give an opinion. Dick Celler is probably the best and most knowledgable person on this issue. I am not familiar enough with this perf to offer an opinion.

Thanks for taking the time to look into this, Russ. I'm really having fun with this one, if you can't tell.

I'm over at the Virtual Stamp Club now and looking around for Dick. Gotta say, I like the software that runs this community much more.

Soon to be slightly more than 20 -- plus 1.

Great news!

so what is one of these worth

November, 2010, hunh?

I hope you do realize, this doesn't happen everyday...you might go months without finding another rarity.

Nice bit of detective work. Hope it works out for you. Pretty cool.

The Scott Specialized value is $8500. However, Siegel had an auction on March 2-3 of this year, sale 1006, (the same day I saw this, oddly enough) with three #7s and they realized $4500 for "the finest single extant," and $3000 for two others.

On September 30, 2010, sale 994, Siegel also sold "the finest single extant" (lot 1137 which appears above and a different stamp) for $7500.

With its straight right side cutting through the design, this stamp probably doesn't qualify for "finest single extant" status, and so would probably fetch much less.

Which brings up another quandary. At my stage in this philately game, I don't have any business having an $8500 stamp in my collection; I really should ought to sell it. Step one in that process is expertization, most likely through PF, and they want 6% of CV. So that would be $510 for a stamp that I might, if I'm really lucky, get $2500 for.

Thanks, Cjd. And to think, not to long ago I made a post about how annoyed I was getting with all the misidentified stamps I was seeing on ebay. Annoyed when the mis-id wasn't in my favor, that is.

And I'm still looking for a reasonably priced, decently centered, garden variety imperforate #7.

otto..
email "weissauction" <weissauction@rcn.com>

He certifys stamps and is way cheaper...