Hi Pete
Your stamp was definitely the product of someone altering the stamp, no post-Federation stamp has ever been inverted in such a way, it would attract great interest in the stamp world, and would easily fetch 100s of thousands of dollars, even in used condition; it would be a major one-off.
Don is correct about the inner image being cut and pasted on. Here are a few deductions that are evident of interference to the structure of the stamp.
1. The background lines are not continuous.
2. The first cancellation line does not taper from thick to thin, but is abruptly altered to thin (not a continuous line).
3. The oval border of the image is obviously created by being cut and pasted.
4. The deep red inking should remain at the top left if the head is inverted, as the image is printed prior to inking, so the inking should remain in the same position.
Here are two stamps from my collection, the stamp on the left is an imperforate proof in black ink (unissued), notice the left side is darkened. The 1d red stamp on the right shows the darkened left side of the image.
Rob
Posted 08/24/2017 08:49 am
