Don't Think I'll Be Buying Anything "Expertised" By This Co.

This is just one example showing an obvious fake, "certified" as genuine. Could've at least cut off the bottom perfs straighter.

I believe Miller is an established dealer who advertises in Linn's. Was he offering this himself or do you already own it? I agree it's probably fake. I have never seen any certificates from him. Now that I have, I am unimpressed.

Boy, that boosts my confidence in them.

No I don't own this stamp; it's one of many stamps w/ Miller Certs, CKStamps is currently selling. I don't know if he certified & previously sold himself(likely). The bottom is way too crooked to be remotely genuine. I know I'll definitely avoid.

I believe there is also a #39 certified as used(unlikely genuine cancel) & a trimmed #24 being sold as a #8 TIII. I'm sure there's probably more, but I don't even want to waste time looking at them.

So have you notified the seller about the items in question and their spurious nature?

reveuecollector, I haven't. I doubt CKStamps would care about anything I'd tell them. I mean why would they believe me over an "expert"? I don't want them to block me either, I have done business with them in the past. In their defense CK is actually calling obvious faults, not even listed on certificates.

Once I was able to get them to pull a #22 from Position 59R4, they were selling as Type Ic. It took some pretty strong convincing to get them to send in for Plating. I told them I'd gladly pay for Plating & any costs associated, if I was incorrect. They never answered back, but they pulled the stamp & later I saw it on ebay Plated to 59R4.

My monkey wrench.

If you read it in 2 ways: It says genuine used stamp or it could be a genuine stamp used.

I saw Alan Miller at the ASDA show Thursday - he is a friendly guy.

Same seller has a #487 coil certified by Mr. Miller as a #449. There's a chance someone is faking these certificates. Hopefully Mr. Miller keeps a copy, with image, of every cert he actually issues.

I'm inclined to suspect that too. Why would Mr. Miller risk his APS and ASDA memberships misrepresenting something so obvious?

Shouldn't, at the very least, the perfs on each side line up with each other? And I'm pretty sure coils never have a guideline running along top or bottom? Or am I showing my ignorance here?

DaveG28 - I don't think a guideline along top or bottom would necessarily disqualify a coil stamp (at least early ones). The original plating used to create the strips would have a guidelines. There's probably some folks here that know more about this than I that might provide more insight.


Here's an APEX cert I have for a used #353 that shows a clear guideline at the top. I cross my fingers that this is alright!

I do not know if any of these certs are being faked (forged?), but an awful lot of them have popped up on ebay in the last 2 weeks.

Concerning APS certificate 181445, I would not call the stamp bad based on a guideline along one edge. If the side perforations are genuine, then I would look closely at the bottom edge for gaugeable divots. If there are none then it is most likely genuine. The bottom margin looks large enough and the overall height looks good. The guideline for this issue is approximately 1.2 mm from the design and the average margin is approximately .85 mm. I feel that there is a very high probability that your Scott 353 is genuine and should it be found to be not genuine by another service they will be happy to revue their certificate. If they feel their certificate is wrong they do have a money guarantee for misidentifications.

I do not think that Alan Miller certificates are being forged. He started doing more certificates after Bill Weiss's passing.