An Opinion Is Just That....

An opinion.

interesting! Makes me want to re-submit a few things!

In addition to the different identifications, I find it interesting that while both expertizing bodies note faults, they are DIFFERENT faults.

I really wish that the expertizing bodies that use outside experts (APEX, PSE, PSAG) would go back to listing on the cert who the experts were that examined the item. PSE used to do that. With APEX, at least members can inquire who the expertizers were on a given cert.

I've had one of the major revenue dealers tell me that there was a period of time that U.S. revenues sent to APEX, and another period with PSE, that at least one of the experts on each roster was clueless and some of the certs are now called into question. I've heard the same regarding some PF certs from the 1980s and early 1990s.

Another reason the expertizers should be listed is for determining consensus of opinion. How many people looked at it? I have APEX certs on revenues where 3 parties examined the item and others where only 1 person examined it. In one case, it happened to be the dealer I purchased the item from, which is NEVER supposed to happen. The dealer is supposed to reveal themselves as the seller on merchandise they sold and APEX is supposed to make sure that other experts examine the item. In this case, the dealer *did* reveal themselves, but APEX ignored it and didn't send it to anyone else. Once I found out, I threw a hissy fit ("Holy conflict of interest, Batman!") and they refunded my money and I subsequently sent the item to the PF. It cost me more money, but better that than having something expertized by the party that sold it (we've discussed this in a different thread, but I still maintain that to not undermine confidence in the system, the third-party aspect of expertization is paramount).

EDIT: So which expertizing body got it right?... or does there need to be a tiebreaker?

The filled thin would not have been called on a color changeling, when a stamp is "dead" usually no one bothers to examine it further.
While it would be nice to know who examined the stamp in question, especially in a case like this, it opens up a potential can of worms. Too frequently a dissatisfied submitter might confront an examiner about their decision, and it will not always be a friendly request for an explanation.
The PF has in-house employees, so at least some of the people who looked at it are known simply by looking at the website. APEX is volunteers, so there is no immediate way of knowing.

Condition is tricky and IMHO is time sensitive; so while a cert certainly should carry some condition info it probably ought to have a qualifying statement such as 'at the time we examined the stamp it...'
Don

But isn't that the case by definition across the board? I don't know that it needs to be explicitly stated.

Its 3 years between certs, anything could have happened to it during that time and we don't know who applied for the certs. The 1st owner could have mounted it with a hinge and then sold it with a thin and who know where it's been between owners? That's one thing I like about Bill's certs, he indicates who he certified the stamp for. That's just another piece of data that may prove usefull down the road.


Art

FYI, the Philatelic Foundation certs also list who submitted the item. I don't think that APEX, PSE, or PSAG certs indicate the submittor.

Interesting. I wonder what would happen if both "expertizers" were shown the other one's results?


-IBFS

Probably this...

And what if they are both wrong.


-IBFS

Well,

Let me say that I was 95% certain that it was a Steel Blue when I bought it. The shade, impression and, most importantly, the paper, were dead giveaways. I have bought more than one Pale Grey Violet because of spotting the paper when they were erroneously listed as some variety of a #78.

Also, these don't turn color to this shade.

I have found that on 24c 61s APEX can tend to err on the side of being conservative. I do find it interesting that while they didn't call the filled thin they did call the obviously faulty perfs.

I'll also agree that the PF has screwed up in the past with these, I have more than one 70/70a that's misidentified. I just bought a very nice Brown Lilac from Ken Srail with a 1995 PFC stating that it is a Red Lilac. The heck it is, it's a very nice textbook Brown Lilac; Ken said so in his notes and I completely agree.

Both wrong...

1995 is 20 years ago, who knows what might have happened to the color in that time.