Where To Expertly Repair Stamp?

Hi Stephen,

Yes, we will select a number of images that we will post on our web site. I will post a message here when they are available for viewing. It's just a time thing as I average over 60 hours/week at my day job.

Pagoda,

I have not yet found any items that WE restored or repaired for sale on line or anywhere else for that matter. These items could be offered for sale in numerous ways and we just wouldn't have the time to track them all. We have worked on numerous items that had work done previously - although not by us.

We also don't go trolling for damaged stamps to buy on ebay that we would restore or repair for instance, and haven't yet attempted to sell any of our own - although these thoughts crossed our minds.

Pagoda - Just because you feel you are doing someone a favour doesn't mean you are. People are destroying artifacts every day thinking they are doing mankind a favour but that is not necessarily my view.

Rest in peace.

I don't have a problem with stamp restoration, same with cover restoration.

And let's face it, any cover or stamp worth restoring is also going to be worth getting a cert on, and I've seen FCI's work, it's good but it's detectable and they have always represented the same.

If you buy a $500 stamp and don't have the ability to detect a repair and don't get a cert, then you only have yourself to blame IMO.

It's just like the people in my business, if you can't spot paintwork on a car and you over trade it that's not the body shops fault.

Bill,

what I said was FRAUD was the replacement on a cover with a different stamp and cannibalising part of a stamp to repair a stamp on a cover which Hans recommended.

His comment

" The best solution might be to find a 10 cent stamp as mounted on the cover, for which the perts and colour match the stamp on the cover as closely as possible
- we would then need to trim the sacrifice stamp and attach it to the stamp on the envelope by matching it as closely as possible. "

Pagoda

I don't see how an action, sanctioned by both parties, is a willful deception. The act of restoring an artifact at the request of the owner and in full knowledge of the owner, irregardless of how the restoration is performed cannot be fraud.

If the owner were then to list the item claiming it was original, then that would be fraud.

A restorer without prior intent or knowledge of this fraud has no responsibility in the matter whatsoever once the item leaves his possession, beyond the precautions Hans states he has already taken in accepting requests.

Hans has clearly stated they do not participate in fraudulent activities and will not engage with a customer that requests something fraudulent. I take him at his word.

So why harp on hypothetical fraud that might occur in a hypothetical situation after the hypothetical restoration?

Many, many paper items (books, manuscripts, etc.) in less than pristine condition are purchased and sent for restoration. For some reason however, stamps/covers have reached some sort of sacred status here and anyone who is involved in restoration of these items is vilified. Demands are made on philatelic restorers which are not made on restorers of any other type.

There is no fraud going on here - just the desire of an owner to preserve and restore the item as best as possible to its original state.

Hungary & Jenny,

sorry but

" we would then need to trim the sacrifice stamp and attach it to the stamp on the envelope by matching it as closely as possible. "

This is not repair or restoration,it is downright FRAUD,

Pagoda

Pagoda, yes that is the definition of repair: i.e. restore by replacing a part or putting together what is torn or broken. Fraud is criminal deception which clearly is not the case here. You normally are the voice of reason and I very much respect your views, but I think you are off-base in this particular instance.

If the cover of a book was restored by adding bits and pieces of another book cover, would you also call it fraud? It is restoration pure and simple - no different than restoring any other paper item, including stamps/covers.

Just love those big "R" on the back.......

A BIG thank you to all who support Anne Marie and me. If nothing else then we are happy to have shown many of you that we operate honestly and ethically. We can count numerous retired folks on limited income as our customers who are happy when they get their restored items back. Some collectors scoff at these items but rest assured for many these items are their little treasures and are handled as such.

I hope that people reading this understand that we certainly don't get rich off this "trade". I average over 60hrs/wk working my day job and given the hours my wife puts in to restore items, she will often do so for less than minimum wage. It is after all, as I pointed out previously, as much of a hobby as it is a business. To a large extent, what keeps her going are the complimentary emails she receives from customers after their items are returned to them.

Should we want to defraud anyone we could certainly have picked a more lucrative venue. It certainly isn't worth our reputation to be labelled as such for a $10 repair on a postage stamp.

Thanks again for all the support
Hans

Well said Hans..Continue your good work.

Robert

I too want to thank Hans for entering into this discussion, with great patience. My understanding of their business has been changed, for the better. I could never have been so patient, under repeated provocation, as Hans has been. I salute him for that, above all.

As a relative newcomer to this forum and a recent returnee to the hobby, just wanted to add my thanks to all who participated in this discussion, especially to Hans who, as other posters have noted, showed great patience and diplomacy while explaining the nature of his business and point of view.. Very informative thread to someone like myself who is still getting up to speed with the current state of the hobby.

I just discovered this thread about an hour ago, and I must say it is worth the read. Kudos to all who participated, on both sides of the debate. There are many issues that came up for me that make this thread worthy of a bookmark as a reference.

I'm glad I had a chance to view this from the outside, for it has given me a chance to see the range of argument that is being used to support the different views I have seen expressed here before.

Hans, it would appear that you have had some experience on a debate squad. Your comments always started with an acknowledgement of what was valid in the arguments of the opposition. I wish I had your discipline, and that we all did. However you came by that practice, it is a particularly good one to model. (Hence my bookmark).


This discussion has helped me identify what for me is the single most important key to "solving" the problem of how to protect the unsuspecting.

That key is education.

Don said it like this (edited):




Idealism and wishful thinking aside, we have no better tool available to us than education to assure some measure of justice in the marketplace.

Watching the way fingers were being pointed here woke me up to the need to stop making excuses and apologies for people who venture into the marketplace unprepared, and get burned. The best sympathy we can offer them is a bit of guidance and assistance in learning from their mistake(s). And I think an important part of that counsel needs to be: if you aren't sure of what you are getting into, and you have no good method for recovering from a mistake, then stay away. That advice covers the poor descriptions, bad pictures, lack of a return privilege, all of it. Don't get into what you do not KNOW for sure. That takes discipline, but once learned, this lesson will save a lot of agony and acrimony.

Taking a cue from Don's book, in my personal opinion the smartest thing Stamp Smarter can do to help improve the marketplace, is to set aside the moralizing (which is an Achilles heel for them) and concentrate on developing good strategies and programs for this kind of education. That would be something worth building.

If I have a damaged stamp in a place in my album, its gonna stay there until such a time as a better specimen is available.
Why waste the money to repair something to a point of have an item that "Looks like the Real thing"? It isn't! Why pretend?
Unless one was to make a topical collection called repairs and restorations. Kinda like the "fakes and forgeries" topical.