Austria - Dollfuss With Expertization Marks

At the time I bought this, I had no idea what the significance of the expertization marks were. Under close examination, it appeared that it was as advertised, a MNH example.













Information I subsequently found out with respect to the marks:

From http://www.filatelia.fi/experts/not...nchor1982046

Georg Richter is a well known expertiser. "This very common expertising mark (genuine or forged) is usually considered to be of little value as it is frequently found on forged stamps."

Discussion at another board postulated that the Richter mark is really extraneous. It could be real, forged, or even random, and doesn't really add anything to the discussion, especially in light of that it has no real significance.


Next is 'Dr Wittman'. Expertiser of Germania issues, and German Bizone Bauten; am unsure as to whether he still expertises (unlikely)

Next is 'Gisbert Zenker': The filatelia website does not note any forgeries of this signum. It states that he expertised 'Austria incl. DDSG and ovpt.s 1945, Lombardy-Venetia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Austrian PO Levant and Crete', and also states his personal/ professional details. Details can be found at the above link.


I spent some time with the BPP website (routed through the Babelfish German-to-English translator):

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translat...-home&trurl=http://www.bpp.de/pages/pordnung.html&lp=de_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

There is an entire system of expertization marks, where the position, orientation, distance from the corner, and the corner of the stamp that the mark is placed in means something specific.

Using the charts and descriptions at the BPP page, it appears that the closeness to the bottom left margin indicates that the stamp is indeed MNH without faults. If there were problems, the two black expertization marks would be farther up the left margin.

All things considered, a printed cert is a lot less complicated.

Just thought people might be interested in the BPP link for analyzing expertization marks... of course many marks found on European stamps are owners marks rather than expertizaters marks.

It seems weird to me, as a relative newcomer to collecting, that someone go to the trouble and expense of buying a pristine stamp, only to have it "defaced" (albeit on the back!).
Edit - that wasn't meant as a comment about you buying the stamp, revenuecollector, just generally about the practice of putting expertisers or owners marks on stamps.