Post Your Reperforated Stamps Here

Have any reperfs, obvious or subtle? Post them here.

Okay, the top perfs are probably original and were cut by scissors. The perf 11 holes at right don't immediately look fake, but what the heck is up with the funky perfs at left?:



Let's put a genuine perf 10 vertical next to it. Huh, it looks like vertical perf 11 holes were added to a #538 to make this look like a #545. The "creator" didn't even bother getting rid of the perf 10 holes.




Here's a #26 that I have posted before, but still makes me cry inside a little whenever I look at it. Reperfs at left:

The 1 cent perforated stamp illustrates the pitfalls when attempting to create a fake 545. The alternative would have been far worse. The Scott US Specialized catalog lists a 546a, perforated on the left side. If the variety existed for the 2 cent, it is possible that it may have existed for the 1 cent but was never reported. Now, suppose, that someone didn't know this and changed the perf 10 side to perf 11. I am fairly confident that this is not the case here, but I would have to examine the actual stamp to be 100% sure.

My favorite blunders are ones that ruin a perfectly good stamp to (unintentionally) create something that never existed. The flat plate stamp was intended to be a 445, but is obviously not, even if the perforations and coil edges were better. The rotary press stamp would be a new Scott Number if it existed, but someone was in a real hurry to ruin a perfectly good stamp. Worse, it could have been watermarked.

Clark

In the era of the Bank Note Issues, the center gutter between the two panes of a perforated sheet of stamps was left imperforate and simply cut. Arrows were placed on the plate to print in the outer margins of the sheet, and these are often captured by the stamps in the adjacent corner positions.





Both of these stamps have a portion of the arrow in the Lower Left corner, which is a dead giveaway when perforations are added to remove the natural straightedge.

Because the perforations surrounding each pane had been set to give extra margin to the outside positions, it is more common with such naturally straight edged stamps that the fakery went the other way. That is, these positions were often trimmed of perforations to produce fake imperforates.





Of course, sometimes these occurred when the stamps were cut apart with scissors for normal use.




In this next example, we can see that jumbo stamps were all too often the source of imperforate singles.





But the most convincing fakes were made from straddle pane stamps which resulted from improper knife cuts to separate the panes. The stamp on the left shows a normal straddle pane stamp. On the right the perfs have been trimmed but with enough margin on the right to convince someone not familiar with straddles that this is an imperforate single.

If anyone is looking for a good 'reperf' reference; Stamp Smarter currently contains over 160 examples of reperfed stamps images. There is a predefined report named 'Display by Problem Type' which allows you to select 'reperf' and see the compiled results.
But I prefer using the auto-filter feature. This is found under the 'Display Review Details' (which displays every review in the database). You can simply type 'perf' in the "Review Opinion" auto-filter box and the list will quickly filter to display the reperf listings and images.



By intelligent use of the auto-filter feature, you can also add a specific Scott number for the reperf.
http://www.stampsmarter.com

These images and the accompanying explanation are invaluable to those of us learning how to identify reperfs. They also illustrate just a few of the innumerable issues raised in expertization. Thank you.

Here's one I saw in an ebay lot a few weeks ago. I saved the pics because I meant to post about it here, but it slipped my mind until this thread jogged my memory.

Unfortunately, I don't remember who the seller was, but I do remember that it was part of a lot of four or five 1869 issues that did not sell.

I'm curious what the experts here have to say about this one. To my untrained eye, it looks like all three perforated sides are reperfed, and poorly, due to the fact that the holes are all over the place in terms of both size and alignment. This, along with the brightness of the paper, leads me to believe that it's actually a proof (presumably 116P3 or possibly P4).

However, I don't understand why they would have gone to the trouble of perforating three sides and applying a grill and cancel, while leaving the fourth side imperforate. And (again, to my untrained eye) the grill, if fake, looks from the pic to be much better done than the perfs, which seems odd to me - I would think it harder to fake a passable grill than perforations.

All I can think of is that maybe the cancellation is rare, and thus the imperforate side is meant to make it appear more authentic. The cancel looks similar to a Cole La-35, though not exactly so. But as far as I can tell, La-35 cancels don't seem to command a huge premium..

Any thoughts?







edit: said "essay" when I meant "proof".

cfrphoto/Clark, very interesting observations. Another stamp that came with the lot fits with the oddball that I posted. Give me some time and I may start a new thread if it is worthy. I'm still very much a student of identifying reperfs.

As cjpalermo1964 said, these images and accompanying explanations are invaluable if not at least very instructive. Keep them coming!

essayk, great information.

51studebaker/Don, great resource of reperf images.

Thanks to all.

This is a good resource where the identification of fakes are laid out in a logical manner:

http://www.slingshotvenus.com/stamps/fakes.html

The entire site is worth reading.

Specifically, check out this page:
http://www.slingshotvenus.com/stamps/fake519.html

Here's the lot this is in: http://www.ebay.com/itm/321616925518
It has no bids yet and closes tomorrow for the 5th or 6th time. Why not?

The images appear washed out a bit on my monitor, so that is a strike against it selling. As a result, in the case of this stamp the grill cannot be seen well, and the paper looks unnaturally white. It may be okay, but as a bidder I can't see it well enough to verify its features. When its hard to verify what you cannot see, as a bidder I lower my bid. The biggest problem with this stamp is that if we assume the perfs to be genuine, then the stamp was scissors cut from the sheet. The perf teeth have been trimmed straight on all sides, and the bottom perfs trimmed off altogether. This issue was produced in sheets of two side by side panes only. No natural straight edges on top or bottom, so the bottom trim is damage. With all that I have not attempted to authenticate the perfs themselves

The cancel does not particularly bother me. It is not listed in Berg for the Chicago Blues, but it appears to be an incomplete strike of a blue octagon with negative A. I don't recognize it, but I don't work with the 1869s much.

Except for the 3 cent, none of the stamps in the lot are centered very well, so, since nothing in the lot looks like a premium item, it's a bit optimistic to set the start price at $245.

Those are my initial thoughts.

Yup, that's the lot, all right. I guess he keeps putting it up for a 7-day auction every time it doesn't sell.

You're definitely right that it's very bright / high contrast, now that I'm looking at the whole lot again. That might be why I thought this looked so abnormally white. Still, it looks distinctly brighter than the 112 and 117 above and to the right of it, though the 113 and 114 also look bright white. The back scans of the 113 and 114 don't look as bright to me, though, but maybe that's all just a matter of how the light struck during the scan.

Anyway, am I wrong in thinking that this is an obvious reperf? It looks to me as though the holes are different sizes/shapes, and some of them are noticeably deeper than others on all three perforated sides.

I agree. Also, they aren't parallel on the two sides. Another test involves copying a side, rotating it 180 degrees, and then lining this up to the perfs on the side that you copied from. I did this below and you can see that the perfs aren't all the same distance apart from each other.

The original image is a photo and was not taken very perpendicular, but it's close enough to use "photoshop" techniques. To me it appears that the 3 sides have been reperforated.

I examined the original ebay listing. The grill looks genuine indicating that the 1¢ stamp is a genuine 112 with altered perforations. Unfortunately, most of the 1869 Pictorial Issue stamps issued were remarkably off center. Perhaps only the 1868 grills could have been worse. The result is that many pictorial were reperforated on one or more sides in an attempt to balance the margins, even though the resulting stamp would be a bit small. The 115 stamps attached below show the difference between a nightmare chop job and a normal stamp, well centered for the issue.

Clark

I saw the irregularities in the perfs too, but run into trouble when I try to account for them. In particular, how can we support the notion that they were all added, ostensibly to improve the appearance, when the bottom has been left out with no way to account for the straight edge except for trimming? In that respect this stamp presents a logical conundrum, and it doesn't help that the photo limits preclude adequate study of the paper and grill.

There are six features about this stamp that command attention:

a. The perforations are not uniform on any of those three sides.
b. The absence of perforations on the bottom is inconsistent with the production method for this period.
c. Comparison with other stamps from the same series shows that this stamp is not appreciably smaller than other denominations of comparable size.
d. The grill cannot be assessed. From what I can see it does not look particularly suspicious, but even gauging its size requires filling in the blanks a bit.
e. The character of the paper is not certain. However, if the grill is authentic, then the paper is stamp paper.
f. The cancellation needs to be identified to rule out fakery there too.


So what are we proposing has happened to this stamp?

I am inclined to favor the view that this stamp may have been a jumbo with uneven margins that someone wanted to make more presentable and trimmed off the perfs to add new ones. But that does not account for leaving the bottom trimmed. We can speculate that they just didn't get it finished for some reason, but apart from wild guessing like that this solution is incomplete [edit- to the scholar, not necessarily the expertizer]. The perfs do not look good, that much is clear. Is that all there is to the trouble with this stamp? That is not clear to me.

essayk, I agree that photo precludes adequate study of most aspects of this stamp. Given the nature of this thread combined with your pertinent observations and questions, continuing discussion of this particular stamp is absolutely warranted.

When I'm challenged to further scrutinize something for whatever reason, I realize that it is time to step back and look at the bigger picture

I stop looking for minute details and consider things like the overall environment of the subject in question. The seller depicts themself as a novice, provides good terms for a refund, and has great ebay feedback. These things make me think that there is no intention of deceit.

The first image presented for the auction is quite interesting. As the seller describes, they all have a blue cancel. All of those cancels are not well struck. These factors are odd, but are outweighed by being able to see good detail in the other 5 stamps. The 10c doesn't show anywhere near the same detail as the others.

Why reperf 3 sides and not the bottom? Good question. Reperfing the bottom would further "center" the stamp and make it seem more attractive to an eye that didn't notice the non-genuine perforations on the other 3 edges. The bottom doesn't have a perfectly straight line, but given the obviously fake perfs, maybe the person who modified it just didn't know that straight edges don't exist on the 1869 pictorials. That still doesn't make it more "attractive" to have a straight edge. It is a logical conundrum that I can find no obvious reason for leaving the bottom as it is. Maybe it was intended to be a filler and the person modifying it just gave up after seeing how non-genuine that their reperfs were?

Since it does have decently sized margins, I could see the appeal of reperforating a jumbo stamp to improve centering and/or removing short/pulled perfs/stains. However, it seems to me that cruddy centering and perfs would be better than these laughable reperfs.

I agree that the grill cannot be properly assessed from the poor images, given the caveat of my lack of experience. However, why would one fake a grill on this design? The special printing without grill has a much higher catalog value in used condition than a used regular printing #116. The difference is nearly 1/20th the CV of a mint #116 or a used #127 special printing that has no grill.

The aren't many reasons for faking a cancellation on this stamp. Moon noted that the cancel doesn't seem to be one that demands a premium. I could see the desire to hide a flaw, but this stamp already has so many flaws that a poorly struck cancel would not do much good. It could be intended to detract from an appearance of being chemically altered, but that seems to be futile considering the other questionable aspects.

I tried for a few minutes to adjust the image to highlight the grill. This is the result:



It barely helps visualize the grill, but it does highlight an area in the top center/center right that could be a large "thin".

For those following along, I notice that it was a photograph and not a scan because of the shadows cast by the perforations. Also because of the uneven lighting reflected from the black background. With a photograph, you cannot tell if two sides are parallel to each other if it wasn't taken exactly perpendicularly. So look for other clues that it is not a scan. The ability to assess many qualities is very easy with a scan. That is not always the case with a photograph.

Why this stamp was modified to it's current state is uncertain. Given the lack of detail compared to the other 5 in the first picture, it could have never been a legitimately issued stamp in the first place. It could have been a poorly executed attempt to chemically remove a cancel where the person modifying it decided that it would be better faked as used. For the perfs, I can imagine that it was a poorly executed "improvement" that went horribly wrong and that the person modifying it simply gave up before reperfing the bottom edge.

In the text above I have made many assumptions and speculative observations given my lack of experience. All criticism and input is appreciated.

The longer that I look at this stamp, and the more that it is discussed, the more it bugs me. I could see someone reperforating a jumbo on one or two sides to even up the margins, but I don't understand why you would ever reperforate more than two sides, unless they were removing a fault on one of the shorter edges. And I don't at all understand why someone who had gone to the trouble of reperforating three sides would leave the fourth side imperforate, particularly if that side would not ever legitimately be so.

Moon, we posted within 3 minutes of each other. You probably didn't see my reply before posting yours.

Some straight edges exist on the left or right side of 1¢ through 12¢ 1869 Pictorial issue stamps. They were printed in sheets of 300 and divided into panes of 150. Most straight edges would have been reperforated by now leaving few surviving examples. Higher denominations were printed in sheets of 100.

The stamp appears to be genuine, but the remaining perforations certainly are not. The bottom edge would have been perforated originally.

Clark