Questions Concerning Scott 355 Coil Pair

rev, your link seems to be for a laid paper search :)

Ken, wouldn't any convincing fake pass your test, especially with a "low resolution scan"? The perfs wouldn't need to line up perfectly to raise suspicion, that they are as close as they are is only one of reasons to doubt the pair.

sinclair2010, I suppose it depends on the definition of "convincing". What's "convincing" to me may not be convincing to you, or Clark, or ??? Anyway, many fakes don't have a matching gauge side-to-side, and you don't need a high-resolution scan to ascertain that (even a low resolution scan like this might spot differences in gauge to 0.05 or something...) You also see (with fairly high accuracy) if the perforation lines are parallel to each other (even on low-res scans). And many fakes made by trimming perforated stamps do not have parallel edges -- again, higher resolution scan will help (esp if hesitation marks are present, etc.) but even low resolution scans will show red flags if there's even a slight divergence.

So basically, I don't see anything to tell me the pair is NOT genuine, and by all outward appearances, it looks typical of 355 coils. That's all I'm saying.

While we can often state with 100% confidence (from a scan alone) that something is NOT genuine, there's no way to give a similar guarantee that something IS genuine. In fact, with tough items like these, there's probably no way to give a 100% genuine guarantee, even when the best expert in the world has the item in hand for examination. They might be 95%, or 98%, or even 99.99% sure, but they're lying if they say they're 100% on a scarce Washington Franklin flat plate coil single/pair...

It was a 355 search, not sure what happened.

http://pfsearch.org/pfsearch/pf_grd...lledfrom=lkp

In this case the tests are relatively simple. No horizontal 5 cent imperf coils were issued. Singles, pairs and line pairs cut by hand from an imperf sheet would be unlikely to have convincing top and bottom imperf edges. Almost all such products do not have parallel edges. The perforations would have to show some fibers and a bit of elongation and pressure ridges, often hard to see when looking at perf 12 stamps or coils. When the pins are first set in the perforation machine, the holes could be expected to line up. Over time, the alignment would be likely to become random. The combination of precisely aligned perforation holes between rows and cleanly punched round holes would be a fatal flaw.

It may be possible, but unlikely that this line pair would be found to be fake under close examination.

It is true that many fakes are fairly obvious to anyone who has reasonable knowledge of an issue, while proving some issues or varieties genuine can be much more difficult.