#461 Block Of Four ... Or 409 With Added Perfs?

Got this on ebay for cheap (and from decent seller who will take a return) advertised as #461 block of 4. Trust me in the following:
They are definitely Flat Plate.
They have clear single-line watermark.

The color gives me pause. It seems a darker shade of carmine then the Pale Carmine Rose listed for #461. The only other option is a block of #409 that had perfs added. However, if this was faked, it's one of the better ones I've seen (of course, there could be several that I didn't "see" because they completely fooled me ). The perfs seem decent, I can't find an obvious error, and the perfs seem consistent. However, on specialty gauge, #461 is supposed to measure at 11-72 (which my single below does). The block measures slightly better on 11-72.5, but is still very close to 11-72.

The single stamp below is another stamp I have that I am 98-99% confident is #461. They were scanned at the same time on the same scanner with same settings for color comparison.

Also included are photos of perf measurements. The 11-72 measurement is closer to the perfs than the photo suggests--I assume there is an angle from the camera that affects the shot. Regardless, the 11-72.5 measurement did seem to have a slight improvement in measuring out these perfs.

Thoughts? Anyone fully confident it's a fraudulent block of #409? Is that perf measurement difference a blatant smoking gun? Any well known stamp forgers known for a perf of 11-72.5 (any legit stamps with that gauge?)? Thanks ahead of time!

It doesn't look to me like the three rows of vertical perforations are parallel to one another in the block. The center row drifts quite a bit right to left. The other two may also drift that way but to me it doesn't appear that they drift as much as the center line? It may just be appearing that way to me.

Those perfs look bad to me, they are too round and they are all far too alike. Plus they do not gauge correctly. I also agree with the post above that they are not parallel.

I could get seasick looking at the perforations. Also, if the OP would use a black background an only one image, it would be easier to see multiple problems with the perforations.

Did you measure the top and bottom stamps to see if they are the same size? The top stamps look to be fine in centering while the bottom ones look nearly perfectly centered. This seems odd.

That is not very unusual for line perforated stamps, even for those printed later. I recently saw a partial coil roll of 350 from the 60's where at the start of the roll all the stamps had freak perfs in the center of the stamps, but they were completely normal by the end of the roll.

Thanks all for the responses. I straightened the photo a bit; perhaps that will help. Al, the right two (center and right) vertical rows have the same distance between themselves throughout as measured by mm. The left vertical row, however, did not seem to slant as much.

For the 11-72.5 gauge, does anyone know what stamps are supposed to measure that size??? To confound things, I gauged some perf 11 booklets (498e, 499e, 501b, 502b) and 498e & 499e were perfect for 11-72 BUT the 501b & 502b were a better match for 11-72.5. Is there any known variance between those sizes due to paper shrinkage?

Right now I'm leaning toward just sending it in for a cert. If they fail it, will they communicate why the stamps are fraudulent?

Yes

I am no expert but I agree with sending this block of four in for a cert.
Don

I got the cert back: #409 with added perfs--as we suspected.