Omg... This Fake 315 Really Tops The List...

Essayk it's quite sad that you can't be more tolerant of others. Innocent banter does no harm whatsoever and only strengthens the family feel of this forum. Fortunately for us the moderators here have created a casual place to discuss stamps and very rarely interfere. Threads are started on a continual basis in the wrong forums and there they stay because they do no harm.

I wish you luck though in reporting every instance of what you deem to be off-topic (including of course reference to ebay in this thread). I have faith however that the owners will not want to turn this forum into a dry sanitized one where members are loathe to freely comment because their post might be reported. There are enough unfriendly stamp forums out there already.

Essayk Everyone, it's quite sad that you everyone can't be more tolerant of others each other. Innocent banter Argumentation does no harm whatsoever and can only strengthen the family feel and legitimacy of information presented on of this forum. Fortunately for us the moderators here have created, many members are trying to introduce topics for discussion that are intended to benefit everyone by promoting a casual place to discuss stamps and very rarely interfere. Threads are started on a continual basis in the wrong forums and there they stay because they do no harm.

I wish you luck though in reporting every instance of what you deem to be off-topic (including of course reference to ebay in this thread). Some present their arguments not as such but as ad hominen/red herring fallacies that don't present rational logical argumentation to the topic presented. I have faith however that the owners will not want to turn this forum into a dry sanitized one where members are loathe to freely comment because their post might be reported. There are enough unfriendly stamp forums out there already.

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Jenny2U and the moderators: I do not intend for my post to be an attack on anyone. Each of you present themselves as persons of reason, but I want to highlight how we are all human and are all fallible.

I only intend to promote further rational discussion where we spend our efforts on utilizing reason and logic to further the forum. We are an international conglomerate of many different personality types and varying skill levels that are all seeking the same thing: further understanding of the material and a shared enjoyment of what has brought us all here together.

This forum is far from perfect and I personally welcome argumentation of how to better it. I personally feel that diversions from the original topic are sometimes necessary and are appropriate especially when the Original Poster has already had their question answered. This forum's format simply doesn't allow for what many are arguing for.

I argue that we should seek how to better utilize what we have available and to refrain from logical fallacies. Attacking each other will never result in bettering the forum. Altruism is what has gotten us to our current level of quality of life in civilization. Perhaps we should continue utilizing that idea in our lives and most pertinently utilize that concept to further our forum.

Well I do not know I find most of these informative, as long as it doesn't go on about how almost every stamp we see is reperfed.

I'm with you Joe.

Jenny, please lighten up. And please consider actually reading a post before you reply to it.

What is the downside to a topic wandering slightly off-topic ? That a few people are annoyed? That a few folks might want to skip over those posts? I guess I am just missing the point here.

In a recent thread entitled 'Cinderella labels on modern junk mail?' one poster veered slightly off-topic to ask ,'What is a Cinderella?'. Does this bother people? It was not really on-topic but certainly is related. It is sitting in the 'Modern US stamps" category when it really belongs in the 'Cinderella' category. It certainly could have been split off as a separate thread. If we admonish folks to start new threads would they really do this or simply move on and not bother to ask this kind of question?

I understand the value of being able to keep a nice, organized archive that is easy to search and navigate. But as a format, forums generally suck at this. And frankly there are bigger forum archival issues to be concerned about such as the long-term ownership and control of the forum content (One only has to look to the VSC forum fiasco to understand this). Additionally we also have the issue of 'bad information' that inevitably creeps into the forum content and which gets archived for perpetuity.

IMO these are much larger issues waiting for a solution. Being a fairly compulsive organizer myself, I think I understand essayk's attempt to introduce a new standard at defining what is on-topic. I am unsure that it would become persistent and it would have to be self-policed since the resources to do it would over-whelm the current staff. Many unanswered questions would also have to be addressed. A key component would be what happens if it gets to be 'too much'. Folks already have some difficultly generating good thread titles and getting them in the correct category. Can we really expect posters to write posts which strictly stick to the thread topic AND the category? (This thread being a good example, what does discussing 'on-topic' have to do with a fake #315 AND US Classic stamps mint and used?)

My concern is not just the addition friction this might cause but also that some posters would lose an educational opportunity by not asking slightly off-topic questions. This trumps my desire for a better organized forum.
Don

Amen Brother!

essayk I read your post including the above statement, which is what I responded to.

There have since been responses more eloquent than I can express, so I will only repeat my hope that this forum doesn't become one of button pushers (except for spam and bad behavior of course). No one gains from placing restrictions of what can be discussed in any topic.

Back to the topic of Scott 315 I appreciated 51studebakers addition that to certify as 315 the margins must measure at least 21.5 mm x 25 mm. That is a great piece of knowledge. Is it possible there are legitimate 315's that were trimmed smaller than that contemporaneously and therefore are categorized as trimmed 304's?

Are there any other factors that can be used to show a true 315 even when margins are smaller than the above measures?

Only an attached pair

Very well said 51. The point is to share and learn. It should all be about content; neatness shouldn't count much.

Bill Weiss mentioned a lazy eye in another 315 thread last Friday in a discussion about a beautifull 315 desi123 found on ebay, Bill did say that a " Vast majority of genuine 315's have it." Second page of thead. No one noticed (or mentioned) the plate scratch at the top of the stamp. Possibly off topic.

https://goscf.com/t/43630&whichpage...rchTerms=315

At one time I believed that *all* genuine #315s showed the "lazy eye", thinking they were probably all printed from one plate and that it would be a constant variety. But it was actually printed from six different plates and I now know that they all do NOT show the lazy eye - but as I've said previously (for reasons I can't explain), most do. Is it possible that real 315s could have been trimmed smaller than the 21.5x25mm now required by expertizers? Sure, absolutely. But there's no way to prove it.

I would say that fake 315s and fake 3c 1869s with "no grill" are the two most-submitted fake stamps to expert services. Fake 534B not far behind. Fake flat plate coils next. Most widely-faked 19th C. stamps (aside from the 1869 "no grills") are the 1868 grills, fake #13 (made from trimmed #35s), and fake #8 & #8A made from trimmed #7 or #9. But there's a lot more......

Any thoughts on this pair

What do they measure top to bottom? Are they tall enough? The top and bottom margins look as though they could have been trimmed down.