I Know It's Bogus, But Damn!

I know that R30b does not exist, so this had to have been trimmed, but that had to have been the absolute tallest R30c ever made. I can only assume that it was a miseperfed bottom margin single (you can see part of the next stamp above) or the planets somehow aligned and it was misperfed away from this row in both directions.

Regardless of being a fake, I still think it's a neat-looking item.

So if I understand what you're saying the stamp is genuine; the perforations just have been trimmed. So it's not really "bogus" in terms of the stamp paying the fee due, it's just that from a collector's perspective, the perforations are trimmed.

Still a very nice looking stamp and, as you stated, you'd be hard pressed to see another stamp like that with such wide margins.

Yes. It was perhaps unfortunate that the title used the non-technical term bogus. But revenuecollector was quite right when he said



Fake = genuine stamp with something done to it to improve its apparent value (regummed, overprint added, perfs changed, cancellation cleaned/added, colour chemically changed etc).

Forgery = an imitation of a stamp created from scratch

I have certainly seen several perforated first issues where the top or bottom perfs cut well into the design of the next stamp but still have a wide margin on the opposite side. Most serious first issue collectors have. Plus this could be a bottom margin example that never got perforated (which is not especially scarce on many first issues) with a wide top margin. The perforations on first issues fluctuate too wildly to assume that the occasional very wide or very tall stamp will not show up.
The real problem is that no one has ever seen a multiple, or a properly tied usage on a document that might be examined, or a few with a recognizable cancel that might be traced. It's possible that a sheet got out as a part perf, but lacking any of the above, it has to be considered a curiosity at best and a creation at worst.

It is always nice to dream about discovering a new unlisted variety. As every year to Scott's catalogue lists several new items