This Scott 332B Brittain Certificate Is The Gold Standard For Transparency

The upcoming Kelleher sale has in lot 545 a 332b Lake shade two cent Washington stamp with both a PSAG cert and a Brittain cert. Kelleher included images of both certs and the Brittian cert consists of six detailed pages of the analytics behind the examination and conclusion. IMO this is what we should all see from the expertizing bodies in general if an opinion requires such an examination. Explain in detail how it was determined that a stamp was reperforated or regummed or is a certain color. Don't leave us guessing and questioning and wondering why a conclusion was reached. Show us how the sausage was made. We are paying for it.








Link to Kelleher auction:
https://stampauctionnetwork.com/V/v76471.cfm

And how many months did this take? There are long threads here moaning about the length of time certs were taking as it is. Of course, when they show up faster, no one gives even a hint of praise, but I digress. This kind of cert for every one rendered???? Everyone would be screaming every day here.

This what I said:




If a stamp did require this type of examination why not provide your documents along with the certificate?

I am not understanding your point Mr. Revcollector.

Well, after some research I found that PSAG offers the Brittain color analysis as a $25 option when obtaining a certificate. I never knew this and find it to be a very useful addition to the traditional certificate when color comes into play.

Seems to me that a dark carmine would show many of the same characteristics, with regard to "darker particles". And what effect would an oxidized carmine or dark carmine show relative to this one? This seems to leave a lot of questions unanswered, since examples of stamps of those shades were not involved in the study.

In my opinion, visual based analysis's will never come close to the definitive nature of a good chemical molecular analysis of the ink and paper. The objective is not 'what color does it look like a century after it was made?' but rather 'what was the ink chemistry when it was made?'.
I maintain that one day a non-destructive molecular level ink/paper analysis will be feasible, and it will embarrass much of the 'color analysis' and color identification that is done today and has been done in the past.
Don

I agree with rodgcam
This is awesome analysis , worth waiting an extra month and paying a bit more.
Even if don't go into this level of analysis, would be great to have some scientific info included and not just a one line opinion .

I had no idea this service was available from any of the certifying agencies. Well, as a 'standard' add-on. $25 sounds like an incredible deal.

I wonder if they will do any stamp, or only certain ones. I have a number of 5c 1847's with non-standard colors ("approaching walnut" "dark grayish brown") as well as a many of the standards (Black Brown, Dark Brown, etc) and I am wondering if it would do any good to get this analysis done on them. The lion's share of these were purchased through Siegel's as those colors - many already certed - and I am very comfortable with the authenticity of them. Have they analyzed a Gray Brown before? A Walnut? Approaching Walnut? Do they differentiate the last 2? I also collect the 3c 1851 shades, and wonder how they would fare with the same analysis. Have they seen examples of any Copperish? Deep Copperish? Plum? Yellowish? I suspect their analysis is only as good as their past experience. I have no doubt they could put ANYTHING in the machine and analyze its color (Yes, sir, it was a brownish red raccoon before it became roadkill. Well, if raccoons were colored by ink, anyway.), but what is their experience with evaluating their analyses? The report shown here looks exhaustive (to say the least), but is it only because they have a particular experience with that issue/color?

I had trouble loading some of the pages on the PSAG site. I was hoping to find some of the answers there. I found their application form, and saw the option of this analysis, but nothing more informative.

Mooter - The answer to your questions would be yes judging by Brittain's published work in the USPCS Chronicle and elsewhere.

https://www.analyticalphilately.org...Spectroscopy

Thanks for the link, rogdcam. I will have to read some of the articles later, but at least I know where they are now!

This guy has OCD. I'd be perfectly happy with a visual comparison with a similar stamp without all this silliness.

"The objective is not 'what color does it look like a century after it was made?' but rather 'what was the ink chemistry when it was made?'.
I maintain that one day a non-destructive molecular level ink/paper analysis will be feasible, and it will embarrass much of the 'color analysis' and color identification that is done"

If the color has changed since it was made, so has the ink chemistry. The only hope is if only the top layer has changed and down below it is still as made, but you would have to either remove the surface layer to examine what is below (and this can be done on a very small area, but I am not sure ow small, ie whether it is so small it can't be seen with the unaided eye) or you need a technique that can see thru the surface (this might work if the surface layer were relatively thin).

typo fixed

A change in the chemistry does not remove the original molecules. In other words, if the ink was printed with iron molecules and then as it ages iron molecules react with oxygen molecules to make iron oxide. The chemical changes are known and understood at the molecular level.

Using visual input is like saying, 'let's look at a glasses of water and guess what is in it just by looking'. Based only upon how it looks, does Glass 1 have fresh water or salt water in it? Can we tell how much lead is in Glass 2 by looking at it?
Don

A carmine 332 has a catalog value of $6.25. 332b has a catalog value of $4,250. I'll take the "silliness".

"A change in the chemistry does not remove the original molecules. In other words, if the ink was printed with iron molecules and then as it ages iron molecules react with oxygen molecules to make iron oxide. The chemical changes are known and understood at the molecular level."

Sorry, but it changes the molecule. If what you are faced with now is iron oxide, there is no way to prove that the ink stated with pure iron without any oxygen and not with iron oxide.

Not too sure about this. If it is important enough then surely using scanning electron microscopy with elemental analysis would give us a better idea. But the problem is that we need to have secure reference data for any stamp to which we want to make a comparison. Would not the paper be a better route for analysis in many cases? There is a line between collecting for fun and investment.