One Very Confusing Certificate Description

I came across this Philatelic Foundation certificate tonight.

Someone thought that they had an imperforate variety of RJA45b, and submitted it as "RJA45var."

This three cent narcotic stamp is only known rouletted, on watermarked and unwatermarked paper.

Scott has assigned these two stamps as RJA45b and RJA78b.

The imperforate narcotic strip stamps have an "a" after their number.

See if you can see why the description is so confusing (at least to me).

Jim

With this example as a guide, can we imagine someone submitting an "imperf" 4¢ first issue playing card as an R17 var. and getting a certificate back with a similar description "It is not Scott R17 variety rather it is a faulty Scott R17a with perforations trimmed away."

People who write certs are human. Clearly someone just put an (a) instead of a (b) by accident and it did not get caught. Perhaps the submitter can be reached so it can get corrected.

I was the one who submitted it and when it was returned to me my first thought was Huh?

I let the PF know about it. Why not just send it back and request the correction?

For that matter, if you were confused, why not call and ask?

To be honest, I just thought to heck with it. It's not an RJA45a anyway so it just went into my bad cert file.
Also, I was thinking at the time that if it were a trimmed roulette, the margins would be smaller. Considering the spacing between the stamps, if it were trimmed I would think the margins wouldn't be this large.

Those stamps can come large.

There are clear indications of roulettes at the top in any case.

I have always been puzzled by the certificate wordings which include what the submitter claimed it to be. Why? It's not relevant. What if the submitter had claimed this was a Scott #1? Would the cert read "Not Scott 1, but Scott RJA45 instead" Quite silly. The certificate should state what the stamp IS, and not what it ISN'T.

Certs always state what the stamp was submitted as. If it turns out not to be that stamp, that is stated as well. This makes for both a complete record and the possibility of doing comparisons to other stamps submitted as the same number.

Perhaps so, but then the phrasing would be improved by reversing the order to state what the stamp IS first, then state the original mistaken claim. I would much prefer to see: "We are of the opinion that it is a faulty RJA45a with roulettes trimmed away, rather than RJA45 variety as submitted." Still, they would look silly if I sent in a similar stamp claiming it to be a Scott #1 and they had to put that on this certificate. Common sense and clarity should prevail.

It's not A but is B seems pretty clear.

Suit yourself, but it is a very poor communication style.

If you say so. I have never had a problem with it. It clearly states what it was submitted as and what it actually is.

Not all certs are written with that much clarity. I've done a double-take and had to re-read certs multiple times. I think the PF has gotten better with their wording in recent years, beginning negative opinions with "It is not..." That wasn't always the case.

For example, see this 1986 PF cert below. IMO, it would be better written as "It is not R3a, but instead an R3d with perforations trimmed."

The word "genuine" in the opinion is meaningless and potential misdirection. Yes, the big honking handstamp makes it clear it is a negative opinion.

During certain periods not as much care was taken in the clarity of the opinion language.





Here is another one. A negative opinion that begins "It is a genuine..."

http://pfsearch.org/pfsearch/pf_grd...lledfrom=lkp