Can You Precisely Identify This 15c Webster Without Seeing The Real Stamp, Please?

hello again,

I searched on the PF website, there are the following "Opinions" mentioned:
Opinions I - IV:
http://www.philatelicfoundation.org...expertizing/
Opinions VII - VIII:
http://www.philatelicfoundation.org...ublications/

In all those books there is no article about a special printing stamp and the way the PF certifies it.
I didn't find any information about the content of Opinions V and VI.

So my quesions would be:
- is there an article about special printings in Opinions V or VI?
- have there been newer Opinions since VIII and is there perhaps such an article?

You had asked for a newsletter that the PF issued to explain how it does its work. That was why I suggested the Opinions books. I did not say they would have taken up the expertizing of the special printings. Considering how long and how often they deal with Special Printing submissions, I would be very surprised if they did write something about that. It is old news.

OTOH if new technology called an accepted analytical technique into question, then they might have written about it. But now I'm not sure they are still working on that series. Number VII came out quite a while ago and nothing new since then, despite all the new instrumentation available to them now.

BTW there is an important criterion for evaluating a Special Printing which so far has not been mentioned here. Provenance. If the history of ownership of a stamp is well documented, and its source is noted, the work of the committee is reduced to recording its characteristics and verifying it is the same item as claimed. Unprovenanced "new discoveries" have an uphill battle.

Thank you again.




This kind of answers many questions about special printings :). I thought that way before already, but the question came into my mind how then the PF makes its certification for such a difficult item. The provenance is of course something I forgot.

Am I correct in thinking that the provenance sometimes is even the main evidence for the American BNC special printings as there is little difference to the normal issue - and also, but less, for the Continental BNC special printings, as there at least the better impression, scissor cut perforation which could be an indicator? Or is in both cases the color comparison to known examples still relevant for the special printings?

Below is the link to the post I created with regards to the 'secret marks' and my findings while researching the designs A45 and A45a. The post is mentioning some of the reasons why I suspect the story surrounding these 'secret marks' to be inaccurate and simply passed down from one generation of philatelists to the next one, without being in-depth analyzed.

https://goscf.com/t/60741

I find this remark very arrogant and offensive. You have barely begun to do the homework on this material yet you call the work of a century of investigation into question based on your "hunches." REAL philatelic students take nothing for granted as you infer. They do not merely pass down knowledge uncritically. You on the other hand dismiss studies you have not even read. Please comment on the adequacy of the work done by Stevenson on the secret mark for the 2c.

Given the reach of new comparative technologies, I'm not sure I would say "main" but I certainly would say "first." The most important kind of provenance possible is that which was provided in an affidavit attesting to the original source of an item and the circumstances of its entry into the pool of collectibles. An unbroken chain of ownership might be thought of as second to this. Such material forms the basis for all later comparisons. This was one of the key principles behind the formation of the Luff reference collection, by John Luff, and its subsequent preservation and use by the PF for expertization. In his magnum opus for US material (1902) he liked to name names of individuals who reported discoveries and cite examples from first hand observation.

and thank you once again... Would this be true also for the Continental special printings, or less?

I ask this, as for Continental special printings I found that they had really a better impression, and there is a hint in Micarelli's guide that they can be distinguished by there very white paper (and as they are cut by scissors).

Essayk, thank you for the constructive criticism.

I've seen the paper quality that Tipzi has hypothesized about and agree it's a major factor in identifying the 1880 Special Printing. Yet going through the PF cetificate record of those judged genuine, there are quite a few that don't show that characteristic. That might be due to variability of photography/imaging, since a bunch are scans of photographs from certificates, for example.

Per essayk's notes about provenance and the Luff collection in mind, I went through the PF record of 1880 Special Printings. Despite a wide variety of colors due to scanning/rescanning, I still got the impression that there is a specific shade/color also associated with them. Your conclusions may be the polar opposite. And there are colors that are somewhat fugitive besides. But my feeling is that the color can be matched against and confirmed with what's in the Luff collection or other actual stamp holdings. I also note the shade descriptions fit the colors that Scott uses to describe the 1880 Special Printings. Again, your mileage may vary.

Consider the low numbers that were probably printed, so that one shade of each value is the likely situation. All I have is the old Scott Specialized report of combined 1875 and 1880 Special Printings distributed. That is 170 for the 90c on the low end and 917 for the 2c carmines/vermilions on the high end. 169 for the 15c. Again, that's a total for both issues. Is there a breakdown by issue available nowadays?

One of the references I ran across mentioned orange (vs. various red orange shades) being an uncommon (if not very scarce) color for #189, whereas #199 is orange. This seems to be true of #189 to me, the yellow oranges being pretty scarce as well. Of course, that depends on what you consider "orange". Since I don't have a recent Specialized, I don't know if those shades are still priced the same as the basic ABNCo stamps. One might think it's changed, but the market driver is for high collector quality stamps and not shades. I'll throw in that orange (and yellow orange) is always possible to find on a faded used stamp.

William E. Mooz estimates that 56% are Continental printings and 44% American printings in his 1999 USPCS Chronical article "The Special Printings of the 1873 and 1879 Issues"


http://chronicle.uspcs.org/pdf/Chro...81/11878.pdf