Lets Start Making Our Own Certs.....he Is???

I am Jay Smith. Bill Weiss invited me to join this thread because: a) I am mentioned; b) I am one of the few single-person expertising services located in the U.S.; and c) because I am also a dealer and I do issue some certificates for my own material. My expertizing is strictly limited to Scandinavian material. (As a dealer I have specialized in Scandinavia since 1973.)

I would not have chosen to use either the design or the text of the certificate that Tropical Stamps has made. When I look at it, I get the impression that it is actually something that it is not. To me it too closely resembles certificates issued by "well-known services". And that does bother me.

I am also not comfortable with the wording of the certificate with phrases such as "Expert Committee Report" and "Members of Tropical Collectibles Expertizing Service...". Yet I do not see a readable/identifiable naming of who these members are, etc. There is an unreadable (to me) signature, but no person's name. The word "service" suggests to me that it is a professional and unaffiliated service available to anybody who wants to submit items for expertization. Yet that does not seem to be the case. The word "committee" suggests to me that the item has been examined by MULTIPLE fully qualified experts. Such people may exist in this case, yet those people are not named.

These are all choices that I would not choose to make and choices which cause me to be more uncomfortable with the genuineness and quality of the item than if it had no certificate at all.

The subject certificate reminds me of the "certificate of authenticity" type of "document" that use to accompany those grossly overpriced first day covers (or other non-philatelic collectibles) sold by promoters back in the 1970s.

For the certificates I issue, I do not want them to resemble any other certificates in any way whatsoever. And I want them to be explicitly clear about what they are and what they are not.

So, how is Tropical's certificate different from what I do?

1) An example of my normal "for hire" certificate is shown here:
http://www.JaySmith.com/expertizing.html#SAMPLE
My name is clearly shown as are the limitations of the opinion. If you send a Scandinavian item to me for a certificate, this is the format you will receive.

2) If I issue a certificate FOR AN ITEM I OWN, the text at top says: "Certificate with Lifetime Guarantee" and the text at bottom says "The item described and pictured, when accompanied by the original purchase invoice from Jay Smith & Associates, is guaranteed by Jay Smith to be as described, for the lifetime of Jay Smith. This lifetime guarantee extends only to aspects of authenticity and not to aspects of condition, quality, defects, or manipulation, which are beyond the control of Jay Smith after the date of the examination."

Notice that it is NOT a requirement that the current owner of the guaranteed item be the same person as I sold it to. It is just required that it be accompanied by the original purchase invoice. (Frankly, that original invoice condition is simply so that I can track down my records of the net selling price, etc.; if I can accomplish that without the original purchase invoice, I would, of course, still honor the guarantee.)

I believe that my approach to issuing a certificate FOR AN ITEM I OWN is reasonable and appropriate. I believe that nothing about my certificate attempts to imply (nor do I believe that a reader can reasonably infer) that it is something that it is not. It does not look like any other certificate of which I am aware. It does not try to look any more "official" than it is; there is no fancy border, no bar code, no formatting that looks like anything other certificates, etc.

As I wrote in the Linn's article which Bill Weiss mentions, the process of issuing certificates, EVEN WHEN I OWN THE ITEM weighs heavily on me. And it should. If I ever were to be doing this as a marketing mechanism, then I should quit.

Why do I do I issue certificates for items I own? First I should say that I do surprising few certificates for items I own; fortunately Scandinavia has fewer "problem stamps" than some other countries. Frankly, the process is time consuming and breaks up my normal workflow. So, I don't do it unless there is a good reason, such as a stamp issue which really should only be sold with a certificate. Secondly, people in the U.S. have only two U.S. based expertizing *committees* (of which I am aware) to which they can send Scandinavian stamps: The APS and the Philatelic Foundation. Since I already do expertizing for the APS, I have to (and do) tell people that if they send an item from me to the APS, they must tell the APS not to send it to me! As for the Philatelic Foundation, I have had bad experiences (for which I eventually obtained reversals) in regard to Scandinavian (Danish West Indies) items sent to them and I am not confident that their committee currently (at least at that time) has/had the necessary Scandinavian expertise. That's just my experience and opinion. When sending Scandinavian items overseas for a certificate, there is the problem that many collectors don't have proper insurance coverage on such items and there is the matter of the high cost for registered mail both ways (still without useful insurance coverage), etc. Other than the "Royal" in England (not especially known for their Scandinavian work), there are qualified German individuals (BPP members) who expertize Scandinavia, but they don't seem to make themselves easily known to U.S. collectors. Likewise, there are individuals located in France, Italy, Switzerland, etc., but they don't make themselves known to American collectors. In Scandinavia itself, most of the experts "for hire" seem to be either dealers themselves or are captive employees of auction houses. That is not to say that their skills are not good (they do see a LOT of material), but there can be other issues at play. There are few independent professional experts "for hire". If I am asked who the best in the world is for classic Sweden, for example, I will say Helena Obermuller-Wilen. However, people such as her are the exception in terms of independence, recognition, reputation, and access.

So, to answer the question more directly, for a stamp such as Faroe Scott #1 (1919 surcharge) for which there is the potential of fakes and manipulations, but which all qualified experts would agree is routine for a qualified expert, it simply makes the most sense for me to create a certificate (with my guarantee) for it. That is the way I offer the item; I usually don't sell that stamp without some kind of certificate. I am not charging any more for the stamp with certificate (because I would not sell it without some certificate). The purchaser is quite welcome to obtain another certificate if they wish.

Is it reasonable for someone to suggest that there could be (or is inherently) a conflict of interest in a dealer such as myself issuing certificates for items the dealer owns? OF COURSE! I would be a fool if I did not agree with such a possibility. However, the possibility of a conflict does not necessarily mean that there is a conflict. (There are lots of such conflicts in life. For example, a medical HMO organization, and the doctors that work on salary for it, are theoretically in potential conflict with the health of the patient.)

However, under the right circumstances it simply makes sense -- for both the buyer and the seller -- for a qualified, experienced dealer such as myself to issue a limited number of certificates for items the dealer owns. I also believe that the explicit "lifetime guarantee" makes an important difference in this regard because it makes that document more than "just an opinion", the document is part of the "sales contract".

To be clear, I would NOT issue a certificate for an item I owned that did not include an explicit "lifetime guarantee".

Keep in mind that the expertizing *committees* have been known to make errors. At one time, some years ago, there was even the strong suggestion that certain opinions of one major committee had been compromised. The point is that a certificate is only an opinion (unless it is also a financial guarantee), no matter what person or organization has issued it. The buyer always has the ultimate responsibility to use their brain and do their due diligence regardless of who has issued the certificate.

Granted, but that doesn't stop most of us here from accepting certifications from expertizers not with the AIEP and BPP. Apparently, reputation and/or affiliation with other organizations (e.g., APS, ASDA) is enough.

My point is that the issue of who is and isn't an expert is more subjective that I am comfortable with (my opinion of course), and based mainly on reputation. Who's to say the seller in this case doesn't have a good reputation amongst his customers, such that the cert is deemed valuable?

The seller may have a wonderful reputation amongst "his" customers. However, to me the offering of the item on ebay suggests that the eventual buyer will probably be somebody who has never heard of the seller before. This is ebay we are talking about in this case! Keep in mind, that ebay's terms of sale make it really clear that those are not "his" customers, they are ebay's customers! If a seller tried to treat them like "his" customers, the seller would be kicked off ebay.

I both agree and disagree with this statement. I am color-blind and don't often collect varieties. Most of those exceptions are for major catalogue listings that appear in my Scott album. The only reason I collect those is because I am a "completist" and can't stand the sight of empty mounts. That said, I am at the mercy of the seller to make sure they identify the colors correctly. In the case of high-value stamps (EG: Scott 64), I MUST rely on a certificate.

Information is only useful to me in terms of comparing catologue information to that of a certificate. Being informed will only tell me that a 64 is supposed to be pink and not some other color, not that the stamp is actually the color stated by a certificate.

So "caveat emptor" to both the informed and uninformed!

Brian

Thank you Jay for that extensive response to this thread. Your reservations to the original cert in question mirror my own, especially the unspoken implications of the wording (which in my opinion are intentional). Comparatively speaking, I have no issue with your cert language and policies.

As you recognize, one cannot avoid the possibility of, or appearance of, conflict of interest. At least you acknowledge that it exists and should be treated carefully.

Having seen self-certification run rampant in coins where dealers were outright fabricating grades in homemade slabs (SGS, Hallmark, and NNTC are prime examples), putting "MS70" grades on coins that would barely make MS60-63 at PCGS or NGC, I'm more resistant to the practice in general since I've seen firsthand how it potentially "opens the doors" to a host of problems in the marketplace and can greatly undermine the confidence of buyers.

What the stamp-buying public has seen on ebay and other venues with respect to misrepresented items is only a tiny amount compared to what the coin collecting market has already seen, not only in terms of sheer numbers, but the stage that the hobby is in with respect to certification, etc.

This is huge to me. I believe that all experts should stake their reputation on their work. This doesn't just apply to collectable experts, but to the everyday as well. Who in their right mind would buy a new vehicle without a warranty, hire a plumber who wouldn't guarantee your pipes wouldn't leak, or vote for a politician who wouldn't keep their promises - well, maybe the last one is a stretch - but you get the point. A certificate should have a money-back guarantee, imo!

Brian

I agree, but it has no bearing to this case as the seller made no attempt at grading - which is a slippery slope even for those companies who are recognized as grading authorities.

Although I agree with Jay's opinions about this seller's certificate, I do not think this seller did anything wrong, nor do I see any reason to question his integrity.

Brian

Jay,
If you have the time to reply, thank you in advance.

1. Other then 'word of mouth' and general reputation, how do consumers select an expertization service?

2. Understanding that every makes mistakes, how does one determine the track record of the various certification providers?

3. I know that you and Bill Weiss are 'one man shows' so folks understand exactly who laid eyes on the actual stamp, but is this true for all certification services? If not, do most all certifications carry the actual name of the person who did the examination?

Thanks,
Don

Wow, this could be a week-long conversation. :-)

I agree and disagree in multiple ways, all at the same time.

Of course, the individual does (and should) have the responsibility for their knowledge, or lack thereof.

I agree that a "bad experience" will do a lot to teach somebody. It can be brutal. But it works. Societies that protect people from all possible bad experiences tend to end up with a lot of people who don't understand that actions (or lack thereof) have consequences. (I had better put my suit of armor on; now I have really stepped into it.)

BUT, what (to me) is missing from this logic is that, in my experience, the vast number of collectors do not discover that they were misled or lacked critical knowledge until they get to the end of their collecting cycle and try to sell their collections. Only then they learn their "lesson". And it is a very bitter lesson which forever ruins them for philately.

We don't want the lesson to be: "you have to protect yourself at every moment because there are so many bad stamps and bad sellers out there... that this cannot be enjoyable".

The problem there is that buyers (collectors) are mostly solitary. They usually don't show their stamps to other knowledgeable people IMMEDIATELY after purchase, when there is still time to remedy the situation. They may never show their purchases to anybody until they sell their collection.

I offer my regular clients a "collection review service", usually at NO cost. The purpose is to confirm identifications and inform the client of quality problems. There is nothing wrong with a damaged stamp if the collector knew it was damaged and it was cheap. However, if the collector thought that everything was identified correctly and NH, then the sooner they find out what was misidentified and/or regummed, the sooner the collector can swallow the bitter pill and move on with improved ways of acquiring their stamps.

At an anecdotal level, I am seeing more and more "built on ebay" collections coming onto the market that contain a lot of garbage. And by garbage, I don't mean a damaged stamp that the buyer knew was damaged, but the buyer bought it because it was cheap; I mean a stamp that the buyer thought was good but was not good (and I believe often the seller knew was bad). Some sellers in Europe laugh (personally observed by me) at the "stupid Americans" because American buyers buy garbage on ebay and do not realize it is garbage.

To the extent that this is happening, I think it is going to create a crisis of confidence in philately. The whole ebay process explicitly (by ebay policy) removes the relationships, thus it also removes any reason to either trust or be trustworthy. Remember back when ebay allowed the APS access to review and remove problem items? Apparently, that turned out to be inconvenient for ebay and the relationship was ended.

"We of philately" sometimes don't do all we can or should to help to inform the uninformed.

As an example, many members of this forum, probably happily buy (and/or sell) on ebay. Yet ebay's terms specifically prohibit and their systems do nearly everything possible to prevent warning buyers when a seller is either a bad seller or selling a bad item. There are reasonable reasons for such prohibition (scheming competitors as buyers or sellers; incorrect or ignorant people doing the warning). By doing business on ebay, a person is telling ebay that such policies are okay. And so some (a lot?) of buyers get scammed or misled. That's just one of many reasons why I stopped selling on ebay. If you want to improve the health of philately, spend your money with sellers and on "venues" that share your respect for philately and who/which allow open and free communication.

Lastly, the poster seems to be suggesting that if each collector is just well enough informed, then the collector is protected from bad sellers and bad items. I absolutely agree that every collector, myself included, needs to know as much as possible and should never stop learning about their collecting area. However, from my 42 years of experience as a professional philatelist, I believe strongly that the vast majority of "experienced and knowledgeable collectors" don't know half as much as they think they know. And that the more they think they know, the more potentially "dangerous" they are to themselves. Sometimes it is a forest vs trees problem. Sometimes it is an identification vs being able to distinguish quality problem. Sometimes it is simply that the vast majority of experienced collectors, that I have actually tested, cannot see an expert repair or rebacking even when it is pointed out to them. There are also the problem that once a stamp is in a collection it is easier and more enjoyable to hope that it is okay than worry that it might be bad.

The safest, but least enjoyable, policy is to assume that any item can be "bad" and that you just have not yet figured out what it is wrong with it. However, if we all approached our collections with that mindset, a lot of us would quit for lack of joy.

Just wanted to thank everyone who is contributing to this conversation. I am learning so much from it.

Don,

I don't feel qualified to fully answer your questions. I don't have the data. These are my observations and opinions, but only that.

1. How (why) people select any product or service is the stuff of thousands of business & marketing school studies. Your question is a really good one. Frankly, I suspect that many collectors could not tell you exactly why they chose this service vs that service other than they heard of this one and did not know about that one. If all the services were presented on an equal footing (something along the lines of what the League of Women Voters assembles for political candidates), then maybe we could research why the collectors make their choices.

2. Accurately determining track record is probably not possible. Even if every expertizer did self-report their errors to a central database, could you believe it? Heck, the (USA) Veterans Administration has just been caught lying about patient appointments with the result that some people may have died (or at least some did die before their appointments). Can you really trust anything? If there was a central repository for "bad certificate information", it would have to be carefully curated. Just because one opinion says X and another one says Y, does that mean X is wrong? Who is the arbiter?

3. Who looks at the stamps. In my specialty, most of the expertizers are individuals. I cannot and should not comment about certificates for U.S. stamps from those "committee" services. Somebody else please address them. I have not seen a Philatelic Foundation certificate issued for a Scandinvaian stamp in the last few years, but previously I do not recall seeing the names of the individual examiners. I do see APS certificates regularly and they do NOT bear the names of the individual examiners. I do not know the reason for that policy. However, in the case of the APS, I suspect that some/many of the individuals are "just doing the best they can" and don't wish to be have the exposure that would come from their names being used. It would not bother me, but I can appreciate why it would bother some individual collectors. Personally, for "committee" certificates, I would prefer that all examiners' names be listed on the certificate. However, the cost of that might be that a lot of them stop looking at submissions -- they have a lot to lose and not much to gain.

I should have been clearer: numeric grading was only part of the problem. Misidentification, certification of fakes or otherwise manipulated items, omissions of faults, were also problematic, as they are in the philatelic arena. That's where the two areas tie together.




I'm not questioning their integrity, I'm questioning their credentials and expertise. Being a longstanding member of the APS or ASDA does NOT make you a qualified expert.

I think reasons vary for different collectors and purposes. I don't think it's an all-or-nothing proposition.

Here are my personal opinions from a previous thread here, but it shows how I might (and do) submit to different entities depending on the material in question and the purpose of the expertization. My apologies for omitting your service, but I have had no firsthand experience with material you have expertized.

There are only my criteria. Others' will vary.

This thread has *SO* many interesting offshoots, it could easily be 3-5 separate threads, instead of one! But there are a few aspects that I would like to comment on, though there may not be enough time to do so in the next few days, but I will try. First is this post;

"The AIEP and BPP do grant authority/approval to experts.
All AIEP experts issue their own Certificates as do the BPP. They both have certain standards that MUST be met in order to be recognized as one of their experts. Their approval as an expert is NOT an easy task. The experts in both groups are quasi independant. AIEP Experts use AIEP Certificates with the Experts name added and the BPP Experts have their own. But, they MUST follow a standard approved format"

While all of that is true, I personally do not believe that the criteria required of new applicants is either fair or reasonable. Several years ago I thought I might like to joint AIEP. But upon reviewing their requirements, one of them struck me as totally absurd, unfair and intrusive. It requires an applicant to WRITE AN ORIGINAL ARTICLE which will be published in their journal! So I inquired - Since I already have one of the five expert services (for United States material) recognized in this country - why should I be required to spend MY time and talent on writing an article in order to gain membership? I was told in no uncertain terms that the requirement was absolute. At that point I decided that even though ANY organization has the absolute right to dictate their membership requirements, I found this one to be so insulting and intrusive, that I decided to forget joining AIEP. So to anyone who may believe that just because someone is *NOT* an AIEP member that makes him/her any less of an "expert", please think again. In fact, NONE of the AIEP members from the United States have their own expert service - but I do.

Yet, my NOT being an AIEP member has hurt me in one way, that I also do not believe is fair. The Scott Catalog Editors refuse to list my expert service in their catalogs because they say they ONLY list AIEP members as expert services. Despite the fact that I am a longtime Contributor to Scott, and despite the fact that for Advertising purposes, they will accept my service as a bonafide one, they will not list it among the other services unless I become an AIEP member.

No thanks to AIEP and no thanks to Scott. If I can't be a member of AIEP or a listed expert service in the Scott catalogs, life goes on.......

"Bill Weiss: Quick-and-dirty identification on U.S. front-of-book material. Great value, but questionable market acceptance on high-value material; expertise may not cover all back-of-book areas.";

Even Though Dan Harding felt the need to repeat this inaccurate assessment of my services - which I corrected in another thread - I will repeat it here; when Bill Weiss does not feel he has the expertise to render a completely confident opinion on an item, he consults with other experts who can. In the case of Revenues, for example, I often consult with Eric Jackson or Bart Rosenberg (and others), for rare coils, I consult with Ken Lawrence, Clark Frazier and others (who may not wish to be named publically). And I honestly don't know what "questionable market acceptance on high value material" means? I regularly see material in virtually every big name mainstream auction with my certificates, so apparently those houses believe the certs are accurate, otherwise they wouldn't include them in the decscrptions, would they? Further, I've seen multiple rare stamps sold in Linn's and elsewhere by reputable big-name retail dealers (such as Gary Posner, etc) with Weiss certs. So I think, in fairness, Dan should reassess his incorrect statements about my service, especially since, as far as I recall, he has never even submitted anything to me to examine.........