Scott 23. 7r1l. This Is Horror And Makes Me Want To Quit Collecting. Please Prove Me Wrong.

The crease is at the top left per the PF cert. Ends in a tear.

I would like to thank you all for the great info on this stamp

Rogdcam... thanks for finding PF cert of this stamp that calls out the fault in upper left with tear.
Since the superfluous 17R piece was removed already at bottom left, PF obviously examined this stamp after it was sold by Bennett in 2005, and agreed with the crease and tear.

But what happened next. Was the tear repaired and sent into PSE and they missed it. I doubt this is the case.

Txstamp: no question I want this stamp in my collection. It is awesome, even if repaired plus corner crease. But you must be nuts to pay 2000- 4000$ for a stamp that sold as faulty for 475$ in 2005. Siegel wants you to bid minimum 1000$ and I'm sure they were hoping 2000$ -3000$ plus for this. This stamp needs to be reexamined by PF.

Sinclair... I agree with you.

What is odd to me is that the PF cert has fallen out of the picture. My experience with Siegel is that searching for PF certs is a part of their due diligence.

Agree with you Rodgcam ...., transparency here is key. Siegel sold stamp in 2009 without listing PF cert fault issues. My guess is the real problem with this stamp occurred between 2005-2009. Now it's just being resold. Clipper city collection obviously was put together by someone of great wealth. I assume it was bought by this super wealthy person in 2009 with no idea that it had a certificate with a fault.

Siegel is very transparent about things like this. They recently sold a stamp with a PSE cert as a 78c and clearly said that while it had a cert as such it was not a Blackish Violet; It sold for under $1,000 as opposed to $20,000.

I am sure that if this was brought to their attention that they would very quickly determine the actual condition of the stamp and I would also suggest that they have likely examined it.

After all, if you read their catalogs they will frequently mention faults that are not listed on certs.

So the stamp does a have a fault. Collectors need to realize that the stamp was graded by PSE and may have been given a grade of 90 despite the fault. This should cause a holy crap moment with anybody that realizes that a stamp with a PSE 90 is a whole lot different than a PF cert for the same stamp that mentions a defect.

The PF would not even grade this stamp, they never grade stamps with faults.

revcollector, the PF does grade stamps with faults.

Sinclair, unless I am not understanding something here, PSE graded this stamp under their assumption that it was faultless. They evidently missed the fault. They did not, as you state, give the stamp a grade of 90 despite noticing a fault. I believe that if the PF had expertized this stamp at that same time and also missed the fault they would have graded the stamp as well if grading had been requested by the submitter. In that scenario, they may have also given the stamp a grade of 90. If either PSE or PF had noticed the fault, they still might have graded the stamp with a heavy point reduction for the fault resulting in a much lower grade. Expertizers sometimes miss seeing faults; in an ideal world that would not happen. I am not having a divine defecation over this - sorry.

Now that we have the older PF cert mentioning the faults in evidence, I agree totally that this situation needs to be resolved by Siegel pre-sale. As has been stated, they are very transparent and usually are flawless in due diligence. If the stamp has faults, they need to so state (and change the minimum bid) so that folks like rgstamp have an opportunity to acquire this stamp at a cost commensurate with its real value (as faulty if that is indeed the case) and collector demand.

"revcollector, the PF does grade stamps with faults".

No, they don't. I expertise revenues there; no stamps with faults ever get grades. This has been true for many years.

revcollector, this is from the PF web site:

"Point Deductions from the Preliminary Grade:
Deductions up to 5 points will be made depending on the number, severity and significance for any of the following problems:
Blind perforation(s)
Natural gum bend(s)
Natural gum wrinkle(s)
Natural gum skip(s)
Tiny natural inclusion(s)
Short perforation(s)
Minor perforation crease(s)
Minor toned spot(s)
Tiny thin spot(s)
Tiny tear(s)
Pale or faded color
Paper that is not fresh
Perforated stamps with margins that are smaller than one usually sees
Perforation disc indentations
In the case of used stamps a heavy run-of-the-mill cancel may lower the grade"

I have been going there regularly for the last dozen years, and have never seen a stamp with any type of fault get a grade. If by "tiny" you mean "microscopic", then perhaps there have been some.

Unless you know something that we don't, on what basis can you make that contention? I have seen lesser stamps get higher grades. How do you know that the stamp wouldn't have been a 95 if fault free? I am taking a statement from the PSE at face value. In a paradigm where, "As a matter of course though if a certificate does not list any faults it means that there are either no faults or one extremely tiny fault. Exceptionally small faults will have an effect on the grade of a stamp but will not be mentioned on the certificate.", what I am saying is a definite possibility and quite a quandary.

Sinclair, if the faults mentioned on the PF cert had been known to PSE, they are of a significant nature (crease and tear), certainly enough to warrant a downgrading to lower than grade 90. I will admit to making that assumption but it is a very reasonable assumption.