2 Cent. 398-B Lake? On Cover

I have a letter with a stamp by 2 cents with color lake scott 398-b I inserted inserted on the auction site ebay you think is lake? Good day simone
http://www.ebay.com/itm/40103509910....m1558.l2649

I am dubious but my opinion is not really important. Anything that is selling for $10,000 demands a certification.
Don

thank you very much to those who I could turn to a certificate?

Don,

Represent and list; then determine if the listing is honest. That seems to be what's happening here.

Jack kelley

It needs to get a cert from the Philatelic Foundation to prove it genuine.

This will be a quick comparison, but I have taken a closeup of the UR corner of your cover and below it I have placed a certified copy of 298a from a Siegel auction. Do not attempt to compare the colors, because these scans come from different sources. However, there is a point of comparison that I wish to point out.




Note that the color tone of the stamp you think is "lake" is not uniform over its entire surface. In comparison with the stamp next to it, the stamp on the right starts off with a deeper tone on its right side than it has on the left. Its color on the left is about the same as the color of the stamp next to it. But that stamp has a more deeply toned UR corner than it has further down that same side.

I have seen this effect when a cover bearing stamps protrudes out a little from a bundle of covers. The stamps are partially covered by other stamps and partially exposed. Over the years dust particles settle and stay, and the result looks like toning. It is in fact soiling.

Now look at the certified example below it and notice that the color tone is uniform throughout.

Based on what we are seeing here it is highly unlikely that your stamp would be certified as a 398a by a competent authority. Let alone the use of carmine and lake color varieties side by side.

To build to Essayk's comments, although it no doubt belongs there, the middle stamp has been removed and replaced poorly on the cover so the cancel lines do not align properly. Also note the very similar centering of the 2 stamps - very indicative of coming from the same sheet as any mailer would do. I agree with his environmental conditions explanation.

Something else is bugging me. The cover was addressed different to start with and was erased or so it looks like. The new, typed address looks almost like an April Fools joke: Fraupunster ? The real name would be Fraumunster!

Peter

Good catch, John Becker. The stamp on the right (which is under the middle stamp) is also misaligned.

Not that it's entirely relevant here, but who in the world came up with the label 'lake' for a shade of red?

The cover is clearly faked. Thirteen seconds of work show a domestic Swiss or an OLD US Foreign Mail cover manipulated into this weirdie! One could argue the envelope was simply reused, but this is patently absurd. Send the envelope to California to be reused? I agree with Peter - a jolly joker at play here.

That's been covered in other threads, but the basic answer is it derives from the word "lac" (think "lacquer") and dates from at least Renaissance usage to refer to red-like pigments made from the natural resins occurring in scaly insects including the one now known as laccifer lacca, native to India. It was an important pigment in Renaissance art. I guess basically, it's refined insect blood.

Thanks, cj!

Frau Punster

The stamp in question is lighter in the left side and gets darker the further right you go. It is the result of oxidation or soiling.

Simone,
Are you going to change this listing or keep it listed like this?
Don