Scott #139 Possibly?

'Morning Jay. Very nice clean stamp. I definitely see the grill and count about 12 points horizontally. It's certainly not a 209, Scotts mentions only four vertical lines between the left of the oval and the outer frame. Yours appears to have 5 like the original issues (though kind of tough to see on the scan under the cancel).
I wonder about a 1879? I can't tell if there is a 'secret mark' on the scroll at the right end of the upper label. Should be a semi circle. There appears to be something faint there, but you'd have to check it with a loupe to make sure. On the other hand the 1879 issues don't mention a grill.
The grill certainly looks promising, but I'd hate to get your hopes up. Fingers crossed!

Scott 161 - It contains the special mark. The grill is a fake and can easily be discerned due to it's lack of uniformity and very sharp, pointy impressions. The colors vary from dark brown to yellow brown.

Cheers!

Brian

Ah, so Brian see's the special mark too. But I wonder about the grill. Scott's does mention that grills of the 1870-71 issues are usually faint or incomplete. Playing devil's advocate here, could that be the case here?
I was suggesting the 187 or 188 (depending on the mark) based on Jay's description of the paper as porous.

I'm not a grill expert, so I must concede the possibility, James.

However, without measuring or counting grill points, I trust my instincts ... this is a fake. I have seen, handled, and owned thousands of grilled stamps and this one looks wrong in so many ways. I wouldn't even waste $5 on a Weiss opinion via email.

Brian

cool. I didn't give nothing for it so no harm done really. I can crop and scan any part you may need if you wish but I wonder why it was faked? Hi catalog I'm guessing but why on such a badly centered stamp?
Thank you both for your diagnosis' I really appreciate it.

Frame lines


another scan but not much better I suppose.


scroll

A better scan of the grill in question

Greed is almost always the motivation, I guess.

There's a couple of ways people try to pass off fakes.

- Modify a stamp with the intent of selling it as a rare single. To pull this off, you have to be really good at forgery.

- Modify a stamp with the intention of selling it as "unknown" or as part of a collection. This is by far the most common way of selling a forgery. Throw together a misc pile of stamps and be sure to include photos front and back. Make sure the photos are ambiguous and of poor quality and you'll get buyers throwing money at the auction in the hopes their gamble pays off.

Sound familiar? I don't mean to call you out, but I wonder ... did you notice this stamp in the lot before you received it and bought it in the hopes it might be an actual grill? If so, don't feel bad. I've done it myself ...

Brian

No I never seen the stamps before they arrived Rileysan.I see how you might gather that though...lol A friend on another board sent them too me to see if there was anything in there I would want and honestly I don't think he is even aware of it. He lives in London and is not an American specialist. It's pretty hard to offend me Rileysan I believe in calling a spade a spade as it were and I believe this to be an honest mistake. In any case I sent him my scans and the news and asked if he would want wiess' opinion on it anyway as a courtesy to him. -Jeff

Nice friend, Jeff. You're very lucky. Too bad he could only send you the top halves of the stamps.

Really hard to count points but H or I grill just a matter if legit. Would make sense to forge for cat value but if indeed it has secret mark then it makes no sense. Nice groupping and great gift from abroad. I doubt with that paper or hinge reminent if Weiss could ID from the scan but maybe a good soak and things will be a bit more distinct.
EDIT- Looking again it almost seems the paper reminent was placed intentionally to deceive.

You crack me up James.. lol Thank you he is a good frind. I had already taken the ones I wanted out and placed amongst my stuff before I scanned these however so there were more...the whole stamp James not just the tops...




Nitro it was put there to deceive it wasn't me..Thankfully.

Don't know if you're still interested in this, but since no one replied at the time I thought I would now. Your thought that it might be a Continental is the best option, given the presence of the secret mark, but the fuzzy appearance of the perf tips suggests that this stamp is printed on soft paper. If that is correct, then it can't have a J-grill since the entire period for grilling was done before the AmericanBNCo took over.

That aside, the characteristics of the J-grill are not evident in what you are seeing as a grill impression. If you would like to see some close-up examples of the J-grill, I would be happy to show you some.