And The Winner Of The Understatement Of The Year Goes To...

Better then looking at the lines, look at the label on the bottom where it says NATIONAL BANK NOTE NEW YORK. Those letters must be very sharp and very clear for a stamp to be genuine. Nearly all fakes have that label very muddled with a lot of broken letters.

Hi all again.

OK, think I have it figured out, something is wrong with the Stamp Community Forum free image optimizer.

I'll try it another way now.








Does this work for you, is the quality what you needed?

I did this with another way, the "free image optimizer" for what reason does not work.

Hello revcollector,

if I may ask something about this: I read this before about the small letters. But at Siegel there is a PR4 which is said to be the only certified used one, and there the small letters, as well as many other areas on the stamp, are not the best quality, I just show a small part here, the whole stamp is under the link:

https://siegelauctions.com/lot_grd....emailflag=on



So are those small letters still "ok" although some of them are missing parts?

I ask also as I own a PR4 used which is very similar in all details to the Siegel one, but has also the "wrong" small letters at the bottom. If I find the time I will show the stamp and ask some questions about it in a new thread here.

That used PR4 looks fake to me.

Jim

Hello Jim - well it was sold as genuine in 2013 and has a 2004 PF certificate? But I know that those small letters normally would say "fake", but on the other hand no such rule is without exception, so:
- why shouldn't there exist any genuine early newspaper stamps with worn plate or similar
- why shouldn't there exist any fake early newspaper stamps with good work, so clear good small letters

That's why I showed the PR4 above :). I myself would think then that the small letter thing is not always a 100% rule?

Interesting points to consider.

Hi Stamperix,

Just based on the image presented, the used PR4 has the signs of being a fake. It (and yours) could still be genuine; a better quality scan would help.

You may want to check out this website, as it has more information on this area.

http://unicornhall.com/NewsPaperSta...terfeits.htm

Jim

hello Jim,

thank you for this very interesting link. I didn't look at the perforation before, and mine is perf 11 :-). But anyway I will probably show it and the parallels to the certified one in the next time. Perhaps the expensive Siegel sale was indeed a fake then, although at least perf12.

The Siegel example is genuine, the inking was irregular on these, so sometimes the letters look less then perfect. However the exact shape of each letter can be checked against known genuine examples (as I am sure this one was). As can the paper and the exact amount of embossing. Plus the overall condition is what one would expect to see from a used example based on how they were used.