Why Are These PSE Certs Different?

I was looking at an ebay item and decided to check on a cert that was shown. The ebay cert shows Grade 70 but the PSE database shows the stamp as ungraded? I also noticed other little differences. Does anybody know if this is legitimate?

ebay;




PSE Database;




Thanks

Ken

The ebay one looks more convincing though !

I'm not an expert, but my guess is the owner submitted the stamp fearful of the grade he was going to get, but confident that it was genuine, so he paid for a graded and ungraded cert in case the graded one was not good enough they could discard the graded cert. Apparently they were good with the 7. Either that or I'm totally wrong.

I looked again. I think I'm totally wrong.

Perhaps the image from the PSE database, which is apparently just a template and not a scan or replica of the actual issued certificate, simply had incorrect or incomplete data entered. User error.

Can one be a paper cert. and the other is a digital scan off their computer files .

As the graded certificate includes "grading matters.com" in the masthead it is probably a later certificate even though the dates are the same. I would assume that PSE failed to update their computer records.

On the PSE website there is a Cert Verification page with this:




The result of this search is what I show.

Here are a couple more examples;













Note the Luxembourg #4. Grade VF-XF 85, Mint OGnh and under that

"it is genuine used" I guess PSE was having a really bad day.

Alarm bells should be ringing here. The expertising committees of every certifying authority has rules about what is to appear as a minimum in the certificate. A certifying authority quite simply does not "have a bad day" even though the grading itself is, by definition, a subjective process.

It would be well worth checking directly with someone on the PSE expertising committee about this before going further.

The problem is that the PSE cert verification pages do NOT show images of the actual paper certs. Rather they are virtual "reconstructions" of the cert information. The frames, PSE logo, and stamp image are individual image files and all of the text are actual text characters.

It looks like they are using Adobe Muse embedded PDF technology and there are mismatches or data errors.

The "used/OGNH stamp is shown on both the paper and electronic version.

I don;t recall ever seeing a paper cert saying Grade: Ungraded

Dan is correct. PSE obviously has a database which contains the certification info. When faced with the issue of publishing the certs online, which would you do?
1. Scan and post every single paper cert
2. Build a single software equivalent (template) of a cert and then populate it the existing data in the database?

One of the biggest aspects of using a foundational database to publish content online is that you do not have to code and write every single page. Say, for example, you wanted to publish a webpage for each stamp for a country and the country has issued 4500 stamps. Would you want to code and maintain 4500 separate web pages (one for each stamp)? Or would you write one webpage which populates itself with data from a database when a request is made to view a certain stamp? Kind of a no-brainer for them to do this correctly with a database.
Don

One has an embossed seal on the upper left corner while the other one does not. I would trust the one with the embossed seal more.

This is a case where PSE's intent to "simulate" the certificate, while well-intentioned, was misguided, as we can see based on all of the resulting confusion in this thread. It would have been far better had they taken the PF's approach, which is to clearly post just the stamp image and the text opinion, and not worry about all the extraneous imagery. People can't tell images of the real paper certs from the virtual reconstructions.

I didn't start this topic to pick on the PSE. I was looking at a collection on ebay;

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MASSIVE-IN....m1438.l2649

If you use the link at the bottom to see the pictures you can find the stamps with certs starting around picture #175. I thought the Denmark #10 looked kind of ratty to have a Gr 70 cert. so I checked with the PSE verification page to make sure the seller wasn't cheating.

I'd be pretty annoyed with the PSE if I paid to get a Graded Cert and when I tried to sell the item on ebay their verification system didn't agree with the cert they sold me.

As for the USED Luxembourg #4 that is called a Vf-XF 85 Mint OGnh,
I can't imagine what folks would say if Anthonies made that mistake.