Is This A 129 Or 118 Or ?

Because it is a BLOCK. (sigh)

Here is a grade 90 (PF):

A DD Latte says that the OP's "stamp" has a good great chance of being an altered proof.

i agree with the altered proof after a second look at the perfs,

It's possible to do, but the image in the OP is very flat which appears to indicate it's neither a stamp nor a proof both of which are engraved. Compare with how rodgcam's example looks. You might like that very white paper with very little grain to point to being a proof, but the vignette is too muddy to be a proof while the frame is remarkably sharp.

Parcelpostguy, you're right, I misread it at stampworld.

Wow, busy day. A lot has happened while I was gone. Love this community.

Here is a scan of the back. No certificate that I am aware of. No gum.

I believe it to be the case that the appearance of the blue layout lines and positions dots are not the slightest bit unusual for this stamp.

Punctuation or spacing is not important until it is. Yours was such an example. However with the internet and social communication spelling and punctuation seems to be falling to the wayside. Additionally, the lettered slang is often open to interpretation and thus confusing. Why The Frown and Leave on Ledge are two examples.

Of course I will be dismissed as not understanding that language, or specifically language changes. But that does not mean for the positive. First there were pictographs, then hieroglyphics, then alphabets and with the advent on the Smilies, we're reverting back to hieroglyphics to avoid spelling.

Here in the USA we have a document called the Constitution which I trust you have heard about along with some other founding documents. Yet today schools do not teach children to be able to read the documents and by extension show that going to an original source is an unneeded bother. Teaching cursive reading and writing is just so 20th Century.


Edited to add:




Thus you explain the fallacy of so-called population reports limiting itself to only certain but not all quality stamps. Now if the block shown was broken up, the population report would increase greatly, likely then lowering the quoted "value" at various grades.

I showed a wonderful tag with an outstanding centered solo mid-level Columbian at one of my stamp clubs. Two folks, new members, came to be privately to ask if I knew about grading and to inform me that I could get much more money for the item if I soaked the stamp off and had it graded to reflect the obviously high grade it was. Neither cared about the loss of the postal history aspect of the item. No, I will keep it as a tag and companion to the same solo denomination I have on a fourth class wrapper. I will leave it there as the pro and con grading discussions have been covered to death in other threads.

PPG - I am not here to disagree for the sake of disagreeing. I point out the obvious, that it is a block and as such is not in the POP, because the POP report shown is from a Siegel sale and reflects the market for the SINGLE stamp being sold. I am not sure what value it would add to include data points for pairs, blocks of four, blocks of six, multiples of five etc. Siegel is trying to give bidders information related to values at a given grade and how many of each grade in each condition exist. Simple. If they were selling a block of six and there were enough patients in the database to make a POP have any meaning, then they would likely have at it. What would happen if you tore the block apart and graded each stamp AND added them to the POP? I don't care.

Not taking a stand on grading and its value or lack thereof. Just pointing something out. Good?