Can New Technical Developments Change "Decline Opinion" PF 1996 Cert On #1 And 6lb11 On Cover?

thank you for trying rogdcam!

The handstamp on the cover is that of a German expert, Proschold (spelling?) who was active in 70s and early 80s on German material.

In years past, locals that were not tied often received "decline" certificates reflecting the ancient preferences of collectors, and most dealers, who did not understand how the stamps were actually used in service.

Cover is probably a genuine use and is likely to get a clean cert if re-submitted and if there is evidence of aging that affects the cover and adjacent paper equally (which of course only indicates the stamp has been on there a long time). For me, the atypical position of the US stamps makes it more likely than not that it is a genuine use. That does not raise to the standard of a "genuine" certificate for some organizations.

The obsession of US collectors to have local post and carrier stamps tied to covers in the early 1900's resulted in a very, very large number of stamps with fake manuscript ties being supplied by Henry Needham to meet the demand. Many are still circulating in the marketplace and obscuring in many cases the fact that the stamps were never canceled when they were actually used.

Having said that, a cert would probably not make any difference commercially.

Here is a link to an online resource of expert handstamps:

https://www.filatelia.fi/experts/namesm.html

Scroll down to Proschold for more details

Good luck,

Steve

Richard, thank you, I have learned a lot about locals in this search and that my biggest gain, the cert would be more for me wanting to know than for selling at this point, but perhaps it will help if I do sell at some point. and what a great site do you have!

steve, thank you, obvious it is not him, very different marking so I can eliminate him

Richard - the cover brought $600 hammer in a recent Kelleher auction. You don't think the cover would have brought more than $750 ($600 + 150 for a cert) with a good PFC? Given that the cover came out of the Langs inventory, I wouldn't have bid without a current cert.

My bad. It looked like an "F" to me. Coffee first, search for information later.

i did not know any of this but with all the help here I found out lots, one is it 1st record of being sold is at:

Parke-Bernet sale 282 May 10 1941 (Knapp) lot 2206

and realized 37.50

so it is ex. Knapp and has grown a bit from the 37,50 in 1941

A comment from a non US collector looking at this from afar.

If the label was gummed originally I cannot see how it would be possible to tell if it had been applied at the time the letter was sent or much later.

If the labels were originally without gum then it may be possible to analyse the gum used to see if it corresponds to the correct type / formulation. That may be technically possible. If the gum types did match it would still be difficult / impossible to be sure it was not a fake.

Surely other than that everything is just a matter of opinion and those can change over time as noted above.

Proschold used more than one handstamp. That is Proschold to my memory of his handstamp (and I met him once, at a circa 1976 show, no it was in Munich when I was with Sothebys handling the Homan estate material on a tour with the material). However, the marking, and his opinion, mean nothing as far as value.

And yes, I do not think having a certificate on that cover relates to any auction price difference. A more important factor would be the person, or auction house, selling the item. .....

Richard, interesting, when the time is there I think I need to contact you