Scott 6B Or 8A? In Siegel Auction

Unfortunately I was the "under" bidder today on this stamp. I lost it in Siegel auction. Went for 550$.

I bid on it because I thought Siegel had wrong Scott number and identified it wrong.

Siegel listed it as an #8a from plate 4. Very fine, sound, light cancel.



If I was right, I'm upset I missed out, but happy for the winner (hope they know what they got for great price)

If I am wrong then I'm glad I lost.

Let me know what Scott number you guys/gals think it is?

Usual Plate 4 E relief fun.
Quick first thoughts only right now -

It would need to be plated to be considered for Ty Ic, however, my first look at this says no its not - the bottom line is too weak under the CE to be considered for Ic. Almost closer to a Ty III than Ic.

Although the bottom line is faint, I think I can imagine seeing it, so I'd side with Siegel in calling it IIIA. Now of course, one would logically go back and ask why it isn't a Ic? Then I'd point to my prior paragraph, and the infinite loop begins. Welcome to plate 4 E reliefs and the madness that they instill. I still have lingering headaches from the 1990s studying these.

I agree that this stamp is interesting and worth a brief discussion. My initial reaction - IIIA.

As an aside, I emailed Siegel when they posted this sale that Lot 556 was incorrectly described. They did the right thing and withdrew it. Its not a plate 4 stamp, and probably not a IIIA. They typically do a great job on lot descriptions - just missed that one.

txstamp,

I spent last 2 weeks plating/studying this E relief stamp. Of course not so easy to plate without high resolution scans from Siegel site.

But after much eye straining, I felt I figured it out.

Regardless, I felt after I finally got the plate number and checked it against the few known copies on internet, I felt 90% sure I plated it right. Thus I threw out a bid... but was outbid by one unit in the end.

I can give you my plating if you want or do you prefer to give it a try first.

rg

rg - understood, hold off then. I don't have time to plate it now, but I'll give it a shot within the next day or two. Maybe someone else will also go at it first.

I am pretty sure it is 83L4 which does make it a #6b.

Right on Sinclair. That's what I got. 83L4. Took me a few days to get it, then about a week to convince myself I wasn't crazy. Then I thought maybe 83L4 is not a 6b, but every book and website says it is.

And then I let it get away at auction.

It could have been my prized possession. Ugggg.

Somebody picked up a sound 6b for 550$. Lucky.

I think Winston is probably correct. It's Plate 4 Relief E with dot under N of ONE, so if it is a Type Ic it has to be position 47L4, 83L4 or 81R4. 83L4 is a fairly close match to the Ashbrook/Neinken illustration (there is no image in the Doporto archive). There seems to be a plating mark above Ornament B and a dot under the E of ONE as per Neinken, but there is no apparent plating mark in the S of POSTAGE as Neinken would have it.

ETA: rgstamp's reply posted as this was being composed.

Sure would be nice to have a good high resolution scan of that stamp.

*EDIT* was typing this response as Dudley was typing his. The Neinken drawing also appears to have a more complete bottom line but I'm not certain that it's a static indicator. I also noticed the slingshot Venus site did not have an example.

after I plated the stamp, I found this pic of pair 82-83L4 (sold for 19,500$) on internet and it sealed the deal for me. The equivalent drop off from 82L4 right side ornaments L,M.... along with the exact same top line, bottom line, plate mark at ornament B, and mark under letter N and a small (faint) mark under letter E of ONE... I was very sure.

But not sure enough to risk more than 500 bones on it. ouch.

Just logging in prior to bed - I really don't like this stamp as a Ic as I previously noted.

Please study :
Siegel sales 994 and 1016

Strip of 3 81-83L4
First sold in wagshal as ty Ic then sent to PF who called it a IIIA - no doubt returned and resold in the subsequent sale as a result.
This stamp looks closer to the strip one than to what a real Ic should look like.
Also now there is precedent for 83L4 not always Ic.

I maintain my stance that this is IIIA

Txstamp,

I saw that as well. Thanks for bringing it up. It tripped me up and was one of the reasons I didn't go "all in" at auction time.

Are you suggesting, as discussed before with 19b, that Nienken is not "absolute"? Has PF published an article changing their stance on 83L4. I guess the question becomes... who is calling the shots? PF has certified a few single 83L4 as 6b... I researched that as well. I'm not sure they ever certified a single 83L4 as a IIIa except in that strip of 3. You may be ruining the day of the poor sole who spent 20 grand on the pair above! Ouch

There is precedent even in Neinken for certain Plate 4 positions to change types over time, including at least three (41R4, 45R4 and 49R4--see p. 266) that can possibly be Type Ic. He doesn't include 83L4 as one of these, however. This seems to be one of those areas in which the criteria are fuzzy enough that people can reasonably disagree, and one person's Type IIIA can be another's Type Ic.

There are a number of very important logistical points that I want to hammer home here.

"...that Neinken is not "absolute"."

No, it is not absolute. Very little in life is absolute, least of all, a book written in 1971. That was 46 years ago. That book represented much of the accumulated knowledge about the 1c stamp at the time of publication. The fact that it is still such a go-to reference to this day, is a testament to how good it really is. It is not perfect, however, nor is it and nor should it be the final word on the 1c stamp.

It is true that for many differences of opinion on 1c stamps, and lacking other evidence in many cases, the Neinken book is often used as a final arbiter of truth.

So what's different here?
We have new stamps that we are looking at which seem to clearly contradict what is in the book. Namely, I believe, with the 83L4 strip of 3, that we have now seen an 83L4 that is definitely not a Ic. Therefore, the position should now be classified as Ic-IIIA, and not just Ic. That is new based upon seeing new stamps that Neinken probably didn't see. That is a normal evolution of knowledge.

So what do we base the determination of Ty Ic on -- Neinken's plate 4 diagram of Types, or the actual definition of Ty Ic? My answer: clearly, the latter.

Ashbrook said that Ty Ic stamps should not show less at the bottom than the 89R4 drawing in the book. I claim that the subject stamp of this thread shows less of the bottom line under CE in CENT than 89R4, and, on that basis is disqualified as Ic.

Now, you are really going to hate me when I reiterate something I posted in an earlier thread on Ty Ic, where I point out that if you study the other Ic type diagrams in the Neinken book carefully, you will see that some of them appear to show more of some bottom design areas than 89R4, and less on other areas ==> yet they are still called Ic. I have long stipulated that Ashbrook created a monster with this Type, as it is not mathematically well defined, and, in fact, incorrectly defined. Maybe I should re-word that, and say that he did mathematically define it. He said if it shows less at the bottom than 89R4, then its not Ty Ic. Well, he and Neinken didn't enforce that definition rigorously. So, we have a giant mess, and thus my lingering headaches on this subject from the 1990s.

Personally, I'm ecstatic that the PF is taking what appears to be a good hard line on Certing a Ic. For a stamp to be a Ic, it really needs to look like one. Its not good enough that Neinken never saw an 83L4 that he didn't consider a Ic, or that he and Ashbrook were both inconsistent in defining these themselves. We shouldn't just believe that what we are seeing is a Ic if it is from 83L4. If it doesn't look like a Ic then it isn't. I claim that the stamp at the top of this thread doesn't look like one to me. All of that said, I took a quick look at the PF and various auction house Ic descriptions, and over the years, the mess has been fruitful and multiplied.

This post is long enough at this point, so I'll continue more thoughts that I want to get to in a follow up post, hopefully soon.

"one person's Type IIIA can be another's Type Ic."

Well said, Dudley.
That is as a result of a poor and inconsistent expertization of this very difficult to determine type. I think I covered reasons for that already.

This is why, when I was forming my 1c collection, which I had planned on being a traditional exhibit someday (essay/proof, stamp, postal-history, etc), when it came to Ty Ic's, I decided that any Ic's that I decided to buy would be Ic, no-foolin. Oddly enough, one of the Ic's I had was certed by Ashbrook, and he used the term: "this is a Ic no-foolin". That implies he was quite aware of the issues surrounding Ic. He also did not feel that it should be a Scott-listed variety. Listing it was a huge blunder by the collecting community. It was championed by a prominent 1c collector, in the 1990s I think. This, in spite of him knowing of Ashbrook's objection to this. I was (figuratively) asleep at the wheel at the time - meaning I knew of the effort to get it listed but I didn't object. I didn't because I hadn't fully gotten to the level of understanding where I realized how ugly this Type is to expertise, and that Ashbrook was right about not listing it. So it got out into Scott. Now we need to make the best of it.

Where is the state of the art of the 1c stamp represented?
There is not one answer to that question, but, several.

1) Expert Organization(s):
When a stamp is expertized by a credible expert organization, that (usually) establishes a point in time from which an item is deemed to be whatever it is expertized as. In this case 83L4 being known as a IIIA. Expert opinions are just that - opinions, and they sometimes change over time, as new information is learned.

The Philatelic Foundation is clearly, head and shoulders above any other expert organization in terms of overall credibility, history and authority on establishing directions in US philately with regard to authenticating new finds. That said, I do not want to lessen the import of other expertising firms. Many of them are staffed with highly competent professionals, and their certs carry weight commensurate with each firms' reputation.


2) Books/Periodicals:
While searching PF certs is a good way to check the current state of the art, new books being published, and new articles being written are another. The de-facto standard for articles advancing the state of the art for 1851-issue stamps is "The Chronicle" of the US Philatelic Classics Society. If you collect this stuff and you aren't a member, then you are selling yourself short. Sign up. The 1851 sesquicentennial book published by the Classics Society had some good articles on 1851 issue stamps, further advancing the state of the art. Although I had evaporated prior to that book being published, much of what we (the 1851 stamp collecting community) had learned in the 1990s and early 2000s got published in that book. A bunch of us figured a lot of things out .. and eventually, some motivated people wrote some of it up there.

3) You guys:
There are quite a few talented 1c platers on this forum. Frankly, I'm impressed with you guys - you're quite good at this, and I'm thrilled to see that! So, surprise, you guys now get to help advance the state of the art yourselves. As you find new varieties, errors in Neinken, whatever, either submit a Chronicle article yourself, or ask someone else to. Send it in for a PFC, and get it recorded that way. Or just post here. This is a great forum. One of the reasons I started that Plate 3 discussion thread was to record some of my thoughts on plate 3, that I never wrote up. I want to keep that going, and keep it as a reference for anyone in the future. Discussion threads on this forum are becoming important references for all of us to look back to, and in themselves, advance the state of the art.

The real state of the art is whatever we collectively know. How we communicate that amongst ourselves is up to us. As to how to get the PF, for example, to recognize something that we have discovered - send it in with as much background documentation explaining all of your research on the subject.

Finally, to the 83L4 at the start of this thread. Given the state of things, I can't guarantee how the PF would cert this stamp. I don't know what criteria they are currently using for Ic's. I personally don't like it for a Ty Ic. I don't know if they are depending on a particular person for his expertise, or if they have specific guidelines that they are all trying to use. I am heartened to see that they are not bashful about downgrading Ic's that don't look like Ic's. That is the right thing to do.

One last anecdote on Ty Ic, and I'll shut up for now. I purchased a stamp, a perforated E-relief plate 4 stamp from a well-known One-cent collector way back. This was prior to my enlightenment on Ty Ic. In fact this experience enlightened me. I bought the stamp as a Ty Ic, but I sent it in to the PF for a cert. It was a 41R4, I think. That is a borderline position at best. In my naivete, it seemed like it had a lot of bottom ornaments .... so .... must be a Ty Ic, right?? Nope. The one-cent collector who sold me the stamp, had previously formed an award winning one-cent exhibit - and he really did know quite a bit about the stamp. I also knew a fair amount, and we were both slammed pretty hard by this. When all was said and done, the guy at the PF who was a guest expert, was absolutely correct, in calling it a IIIA, and he set me straight. Smart, insightful guy.

Much of what I've tried to impart in my last few posts, I learned from this experience. So, I hope my ramblings on all of this help at least one or two of you lurking out there, wondering how the system works. The answer is it works as well as we make it work.