Sometimes Ebay Hands You A Bonus...

I spotted this stamp in a $5.99 ebay junk lot and thought it might be legit. Upon receiving the stamp, not only was it what I thought it was, I discovered what I believe to be a double transfer at top. I confirmed with Karl that it is plate position 23, the Scott listed DT (there are two other plate positions that have DT, one even more dramatic than this position).

So that was a nice litle bonus.

Good eye! How does one catalogue something like this that lists sewing machine perfs and double transfers independantly? Does that imply there are no known plate position 23 stamps with sewing machine perfs?

Brian

Might I ask who Karl is? I apologize if this is something I should know. I'm always interested in knowing who the revenue experts are.

Sorry, Karl Lackemacher. He plates many of the 1st-3rd issue revenues and has an extensive interest in plate varieties as well. I'm not sure what his userID is here.

As far as valuing it, that's a tough one. Presumably an example with both sewing machine perfs and a DT would be very scarce. The question is would anyone pay a premium for it? Both aspects appeal to a fairly narrow collector audience as it is.

The R115a (sewing machine perf) is quite a scarce stamp unto itself. It has LONG been incredibly undervalued in Scott. For years it was valued at $75, well below the $125 assigned to the 25-cent sewing machine perf, despite the 25-cent being much more common... as in a factor of probably 10-20:1.

I have almost 10 examples of the 25-cent sewing machine perf in my collection and have seen many others. It wasn't until last year that I saw my first example of the 50-center. It was revalued in the 2015 Scott from $75 to $450, which is a long overdue correction and is STILL probably undervalued.

I have personally seen a total of 3 examples: the one from last year, which I then traded to Richard Friedberg to obtain the example from Mike Morrissey's exhibit, and now this one.

You could easily go several years before seeing one on the market, let alone one with a DT.

Thanks for the education. Although I don't actively collect revenues (although I have a few hundred thrown into a stockbook for the future), it's great to learn what to look for. If I had encountered this, I would have mistakenly sold it for 50% of 2014 Scott - and would have made someone really happy!

Brian

Thanks. Now that I see Karl's full name, I'm pretty sure I've run across it in some context before.

I am truly in awe of your ability (not to mention what must be incredible diligence) to spot amazing finds on ebay. This is at least the third one you've posted since I joined SCF at the end of August. Well done!