Vancouver Island 5c Stamp - Re-Perfed?

BC and Vancouver Island stamps are not that scarce, they are just scarce in condition better than "good", especially used.

Here is a BC & VI now listed on ebay as "British Columbia #5 Used With Ideal "35" Numeral Cancel".

At first glance it appears like a ok deal for $229, cataloging $400 for fine used.



However, it appears to me to be re-perfed on the right. I asked the seller, and he said it was genuine, his words " I gauged it it's alright to me."

Comments please?

These stamps never have wide margins and would be hard to reperf. But, it is frankly questionnable as they look too perfect. Look at the top of the perfs.....perfect straight cuts. The UR corner looks weird to me.

Yes! That is what I thought! These stamps were comb perforated, so the horizontal and vertical perfs in the upper left and upper right corners must line and intersect perfectly. Here the upper left is fine, but NOT the upper right.

I agree that it is reperforated. I have added it along with a genuine example for comparison here:

http://stampforgeries.com/forged-st...en-victoria/

ClassicalStamps - FYI the 5c stamp (BC #5) at the stamp forgeries site shown as genuine has been reperforated at right.

orstampman,


Thanks for the tip.
I have removed the genuine stamp in question

The top and bottom are compound on this example, which doesn't help things.

It looks re-perforated to me.

Funny...The perfs line up...

[cough]...top and bottom...[cough]

Yup...

Good eye cjd! And good illustration wert. I did not notice the bottom. The stamp is supposed to be perf 14 all around. The bottom perfs measure about 13.25. So that means the stamp is re-perfed on the right, AND the bottom.

Also notice the faded ink "X" cancel. Perhaps someone tried to remove it. That is a shame too because the ink cancel probably means the stamp was cancelled at a remote location that did not have a proper cancel, and then subsequently cancelled at Victoria with the usual "35" mark.

A lovely piece of postal history has been made virtually worthless

That was before ebay. Now:
RARE! COMPOUND PERF, 1 KNOWN, XF FOR ISSUE!

Below is a diagram of what a single row comb perforator produces on a sheet of stamps. That is what was used for this Vancouver Island stamp.



The same comb goes down the sheet from top to bottom until the whole she is perforated. So the top and bottom perforations of the stamps has to be identical. Compound perforations cannot exist, and the corner perforations at the top only have to align first. The above stamp fails on both counts.

Very strange perforations BeeSee...The RED arrow shows 8 perforations across and the BLUE arrow shows 9 perforations across...

That is my bad wert! It is a quickly made illustration I did Paint.net.