Be Careful When Buying US Coils!

Well aren't you the clever one listing a misidentified stamp. What fun you will have trying to fool someone into buying it! What a great place ebay is to play tricks on stamp collectors!

Oh and read this from the guidelines:

John Becker, if I can educate just one responder to the danger of trusting sellers, then I've probably done more then you.

This is getting too close to violating the community rules, and I will stop responding to you.

Gad! I can't believe that anyone would think I'm stupid enough to advertise misleading a buyer if I intended to profit from it!

Oh the irony

Carl: violating ebay's rules by deliberate misrepresentation = OK
Violating community rules here = not OK

In case you haven't understood my message by now, ebay listings are not to be used to prove a point. If you're not selling the stamp, the listing should be taken down.

I concur, ebay is not a good social experiment platform. You are experimenting with unsuspecting buyers, and that is not ethical on any level. Frankly, you don't have to look too far to find sellers who will prove the point that some buyers are clueless and will buy anything. Nor does the point that ' ebay doesn't care' need to be made; this is also a given. So I guess I am confused as to the reasoning here.
Don

I call a spade a spade.

carlberky - Listing a stamp for sale and knowingly misrepresenting it makes you part of the problem, not the solution - regardless of your intentions.

There are already plenty of fakes, forgeries and facsimilies out there without adding another.

So far nobody has supported the concept of posting ebay lots with deliberate misidentification as test cases.

Carl has not logged into the forum since posting on 12/19.
Don

If you know you have something that isnt real either because of outright fake or altered it kind of your duty to suck it up and move on. We all have some if we have been buying collections etc and if you sell them even if you say it isnt real the next person is going to resell it as real.

This is a stamp that I received as part of a large lot of Washington-Franklins that I bought from NY Stamps in an ebay auction several months ago. The stamp was exhibited separately and the notation on its individual envelop noted #491 with a question mark (?) next to it. Having previously purchased lots from NY Stamps I clearly understood that it was unlikely to be a Scott #491 due to the (?) but purchased the lot anyway as there were other stamps in the bunch that I was more comfortable with. Upon receipt I examined the stamp and determined that it was not $2500 Type II, 491 but believe it to be a $19 Type III, 455 (never hinged - nice stamp for what it is). Although NY Stamps did not directly misidentify the stamp, their application of the Scotts Catalog number next to it would suggest that it was something it wasn't. I've noticed that when they put a check mark next to the stamp in question in their postings it is usually the correct stamp. Caveat Emptor!

if they mark something NC it stands for not counted and most likely not real also.

I personally find the dilemma of finding genuine W/f coils (especially p12) interesting. I have bought a few on ebay, some that still look possibly real, and others that fail when I gain new knowledge about how to test for genuineness. But I balk at only purchasing certified because

1) I genuinely like the hunt (my favorite stamp right now was a #31 that was sold as a misidentified #33 on ebay that I picked up for <$90) ... this is part of my enjoyment of stamps.
2) The cost is prohibitive right now (e.g. I grabbed a possible #350 on ebay for a mere $22--yes, I know the likelihood is low it is genuine even though it passes the tests I know to put it through right now, but if nothing else I plan to use it for a reference; a certified #350 typical runs >10x that much)

I've done some digging for info on the W/F coils (applying primarily to Flat Plate coils) and this is a list of what I have found so far as "tests":

1. Size: ideal is 25mm tall or 21.5mm wide (straight edge to straight edge). This is ideal. I don't know if there is any census that includes the sizes of certified coils, but I've read in multiple sources that there are many genuine coils that do not meet this criteria. I would love to know if there is a "minimum size" requirement to certify a p12 W/F coil (that has no known history as part of a multiple or cover)?
2. Edges: Straight edges should be perfectly or nearly so parallel (outliers are past-up coils if they were the early flat plate variety done by hand)
3. Edges: cut with scissors (i.e. trimmed perfs) will be very sharp and clean. Real edges will be slightly rough on magnification (maybe sometimes seen to naked eye?). Caveat would be if the "rough" spots march out with the spacing of perfs, suggesting remnants of trimmed perfs.
4. Perfs: Round perf holes are fake, oblong or ovoid are real (it took me a long time to understand this. To me, it looks like the base of half perfs are slightly flat...I find it hard to explain)
5. Perfs: Clean perfs suggest fake. Perfs with tufts and fibers on the ends of perf holes with tufts and fibers consistently on THE SAME SIDE suggest real.
6. Perfs: Spacing must be regular, not varied between perfs.
7. Watermark: Must be appropriate to the issue in question. Also, for lower denomination (e.g. 1c-2c) flat plate coils, the WM should read horizontally (i.e. the letters are oriented with orientation of the stamp); vertical WMs suggest it is an altered booklet stamp.
8. Guideline: Must be same color as remainder of the stamp.

I'm sure there are things I'm missing and have not yet learned. I've only been seriously looking at W/F coils for about 1-2 years, so I would consider myself a novice. In regards to the coils I have, two are certified (#348 guideline pair and #386) that I caught for cheap as ebay auctions, and I have 4 more that pass the above tests. I'm getting the Specialty Gauge for Christmas (thanks, wife!), so they will be double checked soon. At some point, I will have to bite the bullet on a couple to get them certified (one is a possible #349 guideline pair and also the #350 mentioned above).

p.s. Clark, I love the info you drop in your comments. Now I'm going to have to get one of these "Peak loupe" magnifiers. Please keep it coming.

In regards to the earlier question about how to know the measurement of a stamp being viewed online, it could be done with reasonable accuracy if you have a "control" stamp that has the ideal measurements as long as the control and the stamp in question have the same design measurements (i.e. flat plate to flat plate, or rotary to rotary). Then, using Paint.net or another photo modification software, place stamps side by side until the DESIGN image for both are equal in size. Then the stamp in question is moved (not changed in size) until one of its straight edges is lined up with a straight edge from the control stamp. It will give an approximation of have off from the ideal your stamp in question is.

There are no "ideal" coil measurements. The 25 mm height would occur if all of the cutting wheels were exactly spaced. Apparently there was enough variation to create shorter coils, say 24.5 mm. Worse, very few, if any rolls of early coils survived. In the case of the 5 cent 354, most certified copies are on the short side. The edges must be parallel, but what they look like exactly depends on whether the coil was hand assembled or auto-wound. Hand assembled coils have what I call "hesitation marks". Matching the top and bottom edge should result in the hesitation marks matching top and bottom. I verified this hypothesis with a certified 356 line pair. Make 1200 or higher DPI scans, import into Photoshop elements and select a small area of paper and then Select Similar and then Layer via Copy. It is then possible to move an image of the coil by moving the mouse while the control key is held down to align the top and bottom edges. If they don't match almost exactly, all bets are off. Hand cuts at paste ups are scarce and would normally affect only about 1/3 of the margin extending from the paste up.

Auto wound coil edges, with one important exception, will be the same as rotary press coil edges. Keep in mind that early perf 8½ coils will be more cleanly cut than later coils where the cutting knives were not kept as sharp. This may have been related to fears of breaking a roll at a paste up. Rotary press rolls rarely have paste up pairs, so the concern shifted to the strength of the perforations. The outside edge of one side of some perf 8½ rolls was not trimmed. Later an 11th knife was added.

There is no reference that describes coil edges. It will be necessary to look at as many genuine coils as possible. Many of the generalizations like coil height found in the Armstrong books could mislead and result in a wrong conclusion. While it is nice to rescue a genuine coil from the large slush pile of fakes many dealers accumulate, it rarely happens. Unfortunately, even some coils with certificates are fake, particularly if the certificate is older.

Clark