Fake Grill Scott #140 On Ebay

I was checking grilled stamps on ebay and came across this. I sent the seller a message informing him why I believe the grill is fake. I would have thought a stamp dealer with over 8000 positive feedbacks (99.6%) would know a fake grill. This particular faked grill is quite amateurish as well.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Buffalo-Sta...AOSwa-dWpT6V

Funny. He states that he is not a dealer. He also states he will do anything to make things right. Yet no sign of the fact that this may not be the real thing.

Peter

This seller has a substantial record on Stamp Smarter. Anyone who is buying stamps should arm themselves with as much info as possible.

ebay feedback is virtually meaningless, nothing more than a marketing ploy by ebay to boast buyers confidence so ebay can make more money.
Don

If you are looking to buy various ungraded Overrun Countries stamps for $29.50 each, this is the place to go. Of course finding a badly centered example would be much rarer then any of these will ever be, but what the heck.

Years ago I was a machinist and we use a knurling tool to put a gripping surface on tools we manufactured. It is easy to remove the knurl wheel and press it into a stamp. This fake #140 has 4 impressions most likely made with a knurling wheel.

What would be really useful is a reference book, or website, that showed the variation of grills that show up on each issue. For example what does a light grill and a heavy grill look like on the 1870 series? Or to be able to see a number of certified I grills next to certified H grills.

This would make it much easier for those of us without decades of experience and/or a huge reference collection to seed out the more obvious fakes. (though the one referenced above clearly does not look like any grill)

alub, grills can be quite frustrating at times so here is a link that does show examples the grills on the large bank notes. scroll down and you will even see a fake example that is identical to the one I refer to in this post. http://www.theswedishtiger.com/143-scotts.html

This seller claims he is not a dealer but ships his items in custom printed envelopes with his company name and logo on them.

The late Bill Weiss interfaced with this buyer multiple times over questionable listings. At least 10 times Bill offered to pay for the cert from any 3rd party expert for this buyer yet not once did he take Bill up on the offer. He told Bill at one point that he had more experience than Bill did but sounds like now he says he isn't a dealer?
I also interfaced with him a few times, providing evidence that the listing was wrong (i.e. selling misidentified plate blocks which were indisputably incorrect due to plate number.) He ignores all input and pushes forward to make the sale and taking advantage of buyers.
Don