Unique US 220B (With PF Cert) Ebay Auction - Thoughts?

I have followed this discussion from the beginning. As a new student of this issue I have stayed away from jumping into it, hoping to learn from the more knowledgeable and more skeptical members of this forum. I am firmly in the camp of those who believes that the cap on right does indeed exist, having seen one myself ca.1977, in a stamp shop in Ferndale MI. Sadly, it was beyond my means to acquire it, but I do have several copies of 220a and 220c.

Philatelic Rocker - I would hope that you would return to the forum for continued discourse - some of us are simply unable to participate in a discussion in NYC later this month. The PF cert is a solid first step towards re-establishing the 220b as a listed stamp. I find your secret mark theory interesting and nowhere near as absurd as may be interpreted by opinions expressed here. For both to become a reality though, more supporting evidence is an unfortunate necessity, as is true for any controversial stamp.

HDNA - Using Ockham's Razor to summarily dismiss a hypothesis or as one's sole basis for such dismissal demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the theory itself.

...finally, an open question. I do not own Stanton's book, but I do have Richard Morris' book from 2003 and wonder why have his Relief G and H not come up in this thread? This excerpt is from page 24:

Kurt, nice post.

I have probably ten 220c stamps. The cap on the right 2 of those stamps, look nothing like the Relief G and H above.

I believe the 220b is a completely separate event. It may have been caused with intent, who can know.
But it doesn't make sense as a mark denoting the color change.

I see zero evidence or good theory pointing to a mark to indicate a color change when the color change itself is enough evidence. And, of course, if the mark was meant to indicate such change, then that mark would be on many, many copies.

Don, this is Sollenberger's "map" of the relief breaks from his 2014 article. Not sure if this will be useful to you in deciding what direction you want the census to go, and I wasn't sure if you had access to the article, but thought I'd post it for you.

The quote from the Sollenberger paper that I posted earlier specifically addresses alleged relief H and contends that it does not meet the criteria for a true relief break, but instead is most likely an inking anomaly or a plate variety.

All that is necessary here is to apply the existing scholarship, a list of which has been posted before here. There is no evidence in any scholarship since 1890 that this could have been an intentional mark with any relation to the color change. All we have on that point is the owner's speculation and the alleged oral opinion of one other person. And even the presence of a consistent relief break is doubtful if the population is one.

My hypothesis is that this seller bought the stamp cheaply on ebay in 2008, noticed that the PF certificate recognized a "var," discovered the past cataloging of 220b, and decided to see if selective marketing statements and puffery could turn it into a six figure stamp. This approach disregards all of the scholarship previously cited here, and ignores the fact that PF will certify even common stamps if you want to pay them to tell you that they are genuine. There is a single certified example of this variety only because just one person elected to pay PF to tell them that their stamp is a variety of a common stamp. Thus I am presently in the skeptics camp, but if this hypothesis can be scientifically disproven, I would welcome the evidence and conclusion that do so.

Thank you for the feedback regarding a possible online census. It is straight forward for the census tool to support Sollenberger's or other previous researchers relief break identification system. A greater challenge is the data entry.

The complexity and quantity of the relief breaks may be second nature to an experienced student of the issue but I doubt that the vast majority of users are this experienced or knowledgeable. With the 3¢ 1851-57 Plating Initiative we are fortunate enough we have some highly experienced and knowledgeable folks adding the plating information/uploading images. How many folks here feel they would be able to identify relief breaks?

We would want to solicit as many images and examples as possible. I could set it up to allow anyone to upload images of their varieties; these would go into a 'holding' area and sit until an highly experienced person makes the identification. Alternatively, we can add a database field which marks each record as "vetted" once the stamp has been reviewed. Or we can just let folks upload and allow the community at large to vet the information over time (similar to a Wiki).

Data entry is always a challenge; we all know the adage 'garbage in, garbage out'. The primary issue is keeping the data entry simple and easy so that users do not feel overwhelmed by the form. This is similar to a survey. You want enough data to get meaningful compiled results. But having a data entry form which is challenging to fill in will result in frustration, low use, and more errors. So we would seek a balance.
Don
APS #094826

Good points 51 - "on the job" training isn't available to those so inclined to add to their knowledge base. I'd hate to suggest it in a way - but might there be a way for a group effort to put together an introductory YouTube video? The problem is you wouldn't want a dozen of them by people who might not be familiar with what they're talking about - so some sort of approval or recommendation might be worth thinking about.

Perhaps there's a site already putting together such training or familiarity videos. I've not looked or searched. I'd also think this general training video activity to be right up APS's and US Specialist's alley's. But that's another topic for another day.

Since there were/are some interested onlookers on this list, I want to give you a last minute update about the session on June 3.

Almost a week ago the owner of the 220 item reported that he was being admitted to the hospital for diagnostic testing after an emergency incident. He has not responded to followup questions, and I do not believe he will be at the meeting with, or without, his stamp. In view of that the organizer of the meeting is reconsidering whether or not to hold the kind of discussion we had planned. I will be letting the various invited authorities know the situation as well.

I had made arrangements to have the current principle authority on this stamp, Dr. Harold Sollenberger, tied into the conversation via a Skype connection (despite the challenged WiFi at the Javits Center). Though it is still possible to do that, we may have to set it aside. Anyone who was planning to attend should be aware that discussion of this stamp may not come up at the session after all. I will be talking with Jeff Brahin this evening to settle the matter finally, and will let you know.

essyk, thank you for the update. Thanks also for your efforts.

I hope the best for Philatelic Rocker.

The ebay auction of "PhilatelicRocker" ended on May 17, 2016 without a sale, and I can find no re-listing. I presume the planned meeting at NY2016 never took place and none of the authorities previously mentioned in this thread could inspect the alleged 220b. Is any update available?

I've been away from this list for a while, and neglected to update this thread. Mea culpa!

The meeting set for June 3 at the New York International DID in fact take place. However the stamp in question was not present, but its owner was. Using the images he had sent me and the ones online, the group had some discussion about the special nature of this variety. The owner got quite an education about the technical details behind the production of these relief break varieties, and seemed grateful for that. He was treated with respect by all who met him at that meeting. Since we could not respond to the actual stamp, we were unanimous in our recommendation that the stamp be resubmitted to the PF for a followup now that they have the VCX-6000. The owner voluntarily withdrew the stamp from ebay sale after our meeting.

We had attempted to arrange a Skype connection with Dr. Harold Sollenberger to get his authoritative opinion and explanation of this particular variety, but the WiFi at the Jarvis Center was not up to it at the time. However, at my invitation Dr. Sollenberger gave a presentation at the Collectors Club of Chicago 11 days ago, and included discussion of this stamp. Based on his examination of the photos he has received from me and the owner, he announced his conclusion that this stamp is a double cap variety that has been altered on the left numeral "2." This he determined from the form and presence of certain "shadow" markings near particular shading lines in three regions of the design. He demonstrated that these markings are particular to the "two-cap" varieties. He wonders if the PF had given much attention to the left "2" in its examination, and would like to see what result they would get with their new scanning tool that is able to detect layering thickness differences in printing.

I do not know if this opinion has been conveyed to the owner, but it would reinforce the need to have it expertised again by the PF, this time taking into account the guidance Dr. Sollenberger could give them.

That is where it stands at the moment.

essayk, thanks for the update!

essayk,
I am glad that you all met and were able to amicably come to an agreement of how to proceed. However, I think that it is important that you share with us the images that the seller provided you.

I have performed many searches to try to find out what the "VCX-6000" equipment is and what it is capable of. So far, I have not been able to find anything technical at all. At the very least, searches for "VCX-6000" and similar variations do not return anything notable even when accompanied by various terms such as "Philatelic Foundation" or "PF" for example. Considering that online information about this device is nearly non-existant, I ask of you to explain to us the significance of this device. Especially, how this device's capabilities are pertinent to a better understanding of this stamp in particular.

I don't doubt that this device is pertinent, I merely ask for explanation of it because I cannot find explicit reference to it on the Internet.




Regardless of different analytical methods, much can be observed from a detailed scan. Again, I ask of you to share with us the images that you have access to but have not yet shared with us.



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kollectorkurt,



I do not believe that I summarily dismissed any hypothesis/theory in this situation. I do not understand in any way how you could perceive that I misunderstood the theory of Ockham's Razor.

If you disagree, please state how so. I much more prefer to learn how to better myself than to defend my possibly incorrect viewpoint. I truly appreciate constructive criticism.

I don't care about "being right." I care only that we can come to a consensus and that by doing so that we can advance humanity and achieve a mutual understanding between ourselves.

In essence, please communicate with me your concerns. I am always open to trying to better understand all of those that have different viewpoints.

"VCX-6000" is the wrong search term. You want the Foster Freeman VSC6000. It is a professional document examination apparatus.

http://www.fosterfreeman.com/questi...-system.html

It has since been replaced with an upgraded version to take advantage of the availability of 4K flat screen video monitors. However, the description online of the VSC8000 will give you a good idea of what existing installations of the VSC6000 can do. At the time of release it was a state of the art scanning, inspection and analysis system.

I was going to begin an instrumentation thread back in July, but never got past the [draft] stage:

The July-August 2016 issue of The Collectors Club (NY) Philatelist included an article entitled "A New Technique for Analyzing the Optical Spectrum of US Stamp Inks" which introduces the non-specialist to the use & utility of the VSC6000.

Dr Liston (the author) includes a charming admission that he developed a bit of software to do a calculation that, he later found out, was an existing feature of the machine ... I mention this precisely because transparency is a recurring theme in this thread.

Further reading:

http://postalmuseum.si.edu/research...orimetry.pdf ... Philatelic Shade Discrimination Based on Measured Color(2010)

https://repository.si.edu/bitstream...0article.pdf ... Evaluation of Forensic Methods for Overprint Analysis (2012)

https://repository.si.edu/bitstream..._174-179.pdf ... Scientific Equipment at the NPM (2012)

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey