A $500 Stamp With Paper Stuck On The Back

Why wouldn't a seller take 10 minutes to soak that residue off, especially considering the asking price?

Jim

https://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Sc-R92a...!91326!US!-1

Maybe they're afraid of damaging it
I have a Penny Red that's in a very delicate state and I don't dare do anything with it

You think the asking price is good? 10% of that might be about right for a start.

Some swindlers actually PUT paper on the reverse of a faulty/thinned/torn stamp, the better to hide flaws. Especially appealing would be old hinges, crumbling/aged paper laying around, which when applied to a faulty stamp might sway naive collectors to think it "fits" the period or age of the stamp.

An old trick that happens more than you'd think, especially online. Ultraviolet lights, lighter fluid and high-resolution scans after soaking off remnants--deliberately put there or not--reveal the sometimes ugly truth.

Real-world, old fashioned experience counts for a lot in stamp collecting!

--Jim Wentzell
stampguyaps177-681

Most collectors probably learn the hard way, and early on, not to "bite" on something like this.

And, there's that word "sound" again.

Are expert certs normally in the habit of not mentioning paper adhesion? But what do I know? Wolf-==-

After a little more thought about this item, the old and disrespected adage "what you don't know can't hurt you" comes to mind.

And, also the question, "Would you be the person to soak the paper off this item if you paid good money for it?" I would think the answer is "no" in most cases...unless you were guaranteed a full refund if you did so.

I soaked one stamp that looked like it had a heavy hinge on it. It literally fell apart. The reality was that it was carefully pieced together from several stamps, and the hinge hid most of the damage. Once in water, all that repair work came apart.

Wait one second, I thought the mantra was to always keep a revenue on the original document? Is not a document fragment better than no indication of original document at all?
Don

Don,

I hope you're being sarcastic (no smilies, can't tell for certain). Document adherence is NOT the same as being on piece.

I'm actually surprised that APEX certified this with the paper stuck to the back. As for their pronouncement of "sound", how can they be sure?

Not sarcasm, more like tongue in cheek and we do not have a smiley for that! (Have the sticking out of tongue, but not tongue in cheek.)
Don