Opinion... #29.... How Many Re-Perfed Sides?

They all look OK to me, from the image. The one hole on the top row that's a bit higher is probably normal. I do see evidence of tooling of most of the bottom teeth to shorten them, which is done to either hide other short teeth or to eliminate ugly long ones. There is no indication, however, there was ever a straight edge at the bottom.

My first thought was that only the top was original.

Visual Inspection...

• The bottom shows clear evidence of "cut-n-pull" on at least nine perf tips.
• The left side has a combination of oval, angled and perf drift to the point where I would dismiss pin damage as the cause.
• The right side has at least five perf tips which show evidence of the original perf line (#8-9-10-12-14).

For the metric-happy...

• A srail does indicate a few points of concern, but anyone expecting perfect results from US Classics has their rose-colored glasses on.
• Top and bottom are parallel and a vertical grid centers all the perforations.
• Left and right are parallel and a horizontal grid centers all the perforations.
• I was not able to get t/b and l/r to align on a perpendicular.

To spin a programmer's line... I know enough about the 1857s to get into trouble but not out. So I stay with my gut here -- top is original, left side has been touched-up, bottom and right side have been fully reperforated. A very good job though, at least in comparison to some of the butcher-jobs I have seen here, out on "teh interwebs" and in my reference collection.

I would have said partial left and right sides.

To me I see left side and bottom may be reperfed..perfs don't line up and lines on left are higher..The RED line is where I expected the perfs to line up..Just my opinion.

Here's the listing... currently at $100 with 2 days to go...

2 PFC's : 1997 (Valley Stamp) & 2005 (Gary Posner)

Neither cert comments on perfs...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Type-I-S...281660001653

This is a premium item that passes muster in all things except one. The one it does not pass is the fact it has being offered by tenshillings, one of the names for the "British cartel" which revels in regumming and shill bidding. Both certs state clearly "traces of gum." The photo seems to show that unaltered, but I cannot tell from the photo if they have doctored it since the last cert was made.

Just for kicks I have placed a bid of a couple of hundred bucks on it, which has no chance of does anything but call attention from serious bidders (who usually follow a snipe strategy anyway). But by any standard this is a premium item that would do well at auction, and it has the cat behind it ($5500) and the look to command some serious money. They know it, and anyone who thinks they can slip in and steal it for less than $1000 is the one who is not being honest. Expect the seller to take steps to protect the item, including bidding on his own material.

essayk, the pulled perf shown at bottom of the '97 certificate has magically repaired itself! Nice scam - do a tiny repair job to increase the value of the stamp by 50% or better, and provide multiple certs to deflect suspicion.

Sir Tipzi... I applaud you...

We have a stamp repair site in Canada that adds perfs..etc.
http://home.golden.net/~hanssitt/SR...SRShome.html

Your stamp in on their site below..
http://home.golden.net/~hanssitt/SR..._col_lg1.jpg

For American visitors...
http://home.golden.net/~hanssitt/SR.../ordrus.html

Question: when looking at re-perfing, I look at the individual perforation hole shape, dimension, depth, row consistency of depth and shape, sharpness pin of cut, hint of paper aging around perf holes vs non-aging, paper fraying at perf tips vs. no paper-fraying, perf irregularities, etc., and I compare the rows to each other. Am I the only one who checks for re-perfs this way?

Here, WERT has done a fantastic job creating a grid. Other areas on SCF discuss the "Srail test". IS there one "best way" for determine if a stamp has been re-perfed, short of having a stamp expertised -- or do all methods work?

DISI123 - Sorry, I didn't mean to leave you out. You did a great job in the other post outlining the the Srail.

Hal... thank you kindly for the mention...

I posted the perf comparison on the other
one a little bit ago...

This seller ID is just one name out of multiple seller names, that are all believed to be the same person. Anyone who follows these sellers will see a lot of the same material float back and foth between them. We have reported (to no avail) multiple stamps that have been altered from their original condition. Some of these have been posted here in other threads. The MO of the seller is to buy material in big-name US auctions and then sell it on ebay, often in a different condition. A specialty seems to be to buy previously hinged stamps, work over the gum to make them appear NH, then sell them as NH.

Think about the profit margin in doing this. The difference between scarce previously hinged stamps and NH stamps is substantial (check Scott's Graded Prices to see the big differences). So if you can buy a PH stamp that catalogs say $1,000. as PH for say 50% of Scott, then resell it as NH at say $2,000. Scott for NH at the same 50%, you double your money!

A search here on the SCF by the different seller names will get you some interesting reading if you are unfamiliar with this seller. Try "superdeal70", "hmorgan10", "rushmore_bargains", "rushmore", "re-entry", "tenshillings", also "superdeal72", "hmorgan56". Also formerly "postage-dues". "mint_stamps", "collectstamps" and quite a few others that are now obsolete. Several years ago this seller was heavily discussed on other philatelic discussion boards including the "oz" board and the old VSC. But the seller names were different back then! Mainly "Goldenhoard" "Golden-hoarde" and many others.

This is a very interesting post. Here we have a least 4 different opinions as to whether this stamp has been re erred and, if so , to what degree. I don't claim to have the knowledge or frankly the interest to go into the detail that many of the posters have done to answer that question regarding this stamp or any other stamp. When I was actively collecting, I would buy stamps from a well recognized and respected dealer and the stamp was already certified by either APEX, PSE, PF or if British, the RPS.
I was interested in my stamps being fault free but had previously concluded that, in the real of stamps, there were always going to be people more knowledgable and expert than I to do it.

Based on the time I was actively buying that means that these certificates dated from my earliest in 1956 to the most recent one dated around 2010. These stamps were purchased between the very late 1980's to around 2008 when I concluded that although I love the hobby that maybe sinking a lot of money into expensive US stamps was not the best use of that money. You might also say that my confidence in the future of philately, at least in the United States has waned.

It is not that I ever really got into this hobby with the idea of funding a retirement plan. Still, when purchasing pre 1900 certified unused classics at the time I did one did not necessarily feel they were throwing their money away. How quickly the environment changes.

But the point of all of this is that when I first started purchasing stamps, a clean cert was accepted as just that. More recently we now have the school of thought that th older certs are worthless because expertizers at that time, the story goes, were only interested in identifying the stamp and not mentioning faults.

Now we have the interesting situation of a stamp, that actually looks pretty good to me, with not one , but two recent PFC's, and we are questioning the reliability of them. For what reason this time? Is it just possible that their opinion was correct?

By the way, the 1956 stamp was a Scott 103 OGPH subsequently rectified without further qualification by the PF twice more over the next 50 years with the last cert 2002 at which time I acquired it. So maybe the expertizers of old should be given a little more slack.

FunCity,

I don't think anyone has ever said that ALL "old" certs are wrong. That would not be true. But it *IS* true that back in the c.1950s-70s the primary objective of the PF was to identify the stamp. Noting faults or alterations was not a priority. And I assure you that I am not speaking as an expert service when I say this, but rather someone who ran a public auction firm for a quarter of a century, and in that occupation examined countless stamps with old certs. I would say that a big percentage of them had fault(s) that were not noted on the cert.

And my comments have nothing to do with the 5c stamp currently being discussed because to my eyes, those perfs look genuine all around and the alteration/improvement noted by Tipzi was not noted on the certs I assume because they did not regard the short perf as a notable fault.

There was also a period of time (70s-80s?) when PF was providing certs to certain dealers on the dealer's ID. Many of those certs are (surprise!) bad. Since that was discovered they've been very good at actually judging what was submitted instead of taking the word of 'reputable' dealers.