Strange Cancellation On Specimen 1 Cent Red Benjamin Franklin

Anybody knows something about the strange heavy pink cancel and is it a real specimen or one of mr. Fournier with his Nova Scotia specimen fake overprints?

Well, there is a lot `not known` here. I don`t know why a specimen stamp would be cancelled (though I`ve seen them before) and I don`t know what the `77` represents. Also, while I know it`s done, I don`t know why someone would forge a specimen overprint and place it on a poor printing of a stamp.

Kevin, the stamp is Scott O10S, and it does not look like a fake. I do not know why anyone would have put this pink dot on it - other than that it is a pretty stamp.

Peter

The executive officials are for the most part rare, I try to avoid them because I see more that I think are fake than I see that I think are real.

Thanks Petert4522, for a cancel you should expect black or blue, even red, but not pink.

Pretty interesting perfs on left side and bottom too.

If any part of the stamp... the stamp itself, perforation, overprint... is faked then it could have been marked with the colored circle to identify it as such. I believe there are a few databases with example fakes and forgeries and this could have been example number 77.
Just a supposition as I have no expertise in identifying fakes and forgeries.

Just a guess on my part, but could the round circle have been some sort of tape/hinge, etc., rather than a cancel. I'm thinking along the lines that maybe someone used a less desirable mount or hinge or tape of some sort to mount the stamp in an album and that discolored over time. On first glance, it appears to me the "cancel" is strongly/bolder on the reverse side of the stamp than the face of the stamp, which leads me to believe that the color may have bled through over time. Merely another theory to add to the collection.

scot, excellent theory. The pink disk certainly marks it distinctly.

As an aside, I know that the earliest cork cancels were made with an unmodified cork--making a disk like this one--but this stamp is a little too old for that, isn`t it?

EDIT: I just realized that I mean the stamp is too young.

I agree with the "bleed through" theory. The stamp appears genuine.

Thanks all for the interesting theories. However, it looks like a perfect round circle so for a hinge it's too perfect round I think. And there is also the pink spot on the left on the face (but also on the reverse site). Keep on hoping that one day the greatgreatgreatgreat grandson of the postmaster will provide us with the right answer :-)

I agree that it is almost perfectly round, too round for any kind of cork cancel. A perfectly round cancel in the 1870s also seems like a stretch. To me, it does look like one of those purple glue dots that has been removed. The remaining darker purple areas might be explained as dried extra purple adhesive.
Don