This Cover Is Making Me Nuts

One of our members has this cover listed for sale

It is listed with a cert and listing mentions the strange missing stamp.



But I am baffled by this cancel.


Ignoring the imperf pair of stamps and looking only at the cancel....obviously a stamp existed when the cancel was first struck, you can see the perforation outlines. You can see the shadow where the stamp previous existed...yet the rest of the cancel (letters) is there. How in the world could this be, how could both co-exist? What, other than a faked cancel, could explain how this appears?
Don

Don - Isn't the likelihood that, whilst there may previously have been a stamp on the envelope, perhaps briefly, it was removed before the envelope, with the new/remaining stamps were cancelled, perhaps because the sender realised that the wrong denomination had been used or the stamp had been wrongly placed? The ink has then filled in the indentations made by the removed stamp.

But if a stamp was there originally when the cancel was struck, would not it look like this?



For the cancel to appear like this


It would require the cancel to be struck twice (in exact same spot), once with the stamp and then again without the stamp?

Don

That is somewhat of a rubic's cube cover.

Note the background smudges shown around the left hand side letters



Yet the smudges are abruptly absent around any of the right hand letters?

This cover is messing with my head.
Don

How about this:
the cover was meant to be sent internally, with a stamp of a smaller value. Then, the sender changed his mind and took the stamp off. So, the discolored area is caused by the stamp peeling off with a superficial layer of the cover surface.
Later, the cover was used to be sent abroad, to Bristol GB, with the two 12c stamps.

aug-stamps,
That would explain the cancel looking like this...but it does not look like that.


So how is it explained that the cancel has the letter on the right hand side (where stamp previously were)?

If the cancel was added after the missing stamp were removed, then why does the cancel clearly show the perforations of the missing stamps?


There are two things that could have happened...
1. Cancel was applied and stamp were removed/fell off. But now we have to explain how the right hand letters got there.

2. Cancel was applied after stamp were removed /fell off. So now we have to explain why the cancel shows the perforations.

I do not see how these two conditions can exist together.
Don

I'm not saying it is not okay, but I agree that what is going on there at that particular spot raises questions so I would want to see a much more detailed and microscopic examination of all of the areas of the stamps and the markings on them. The suggestions so far as to what may have happened are possible but my tendency is to start with Occam's Razor and not seek somewhat unlikely explanations as a starting point.

The cover is also toned and showing age, yet the pair of stamps seems pretty fresh. I would expect them to also be a bit toned, just another thing that makes me a little bit suspect. I am dying to know what is under that pair of stamps, but if it were my cover I am not sure that I would have the backbone to lift them.
Don

Don, here is the same cover offered for sale, with more details and PSAG certificate:

https://picclick.co.uk/1854-17-pair...5748167.html

I'm not a big PSAG fan, and I don't think they examined this one carefully enough.

Seems to be a fake all the way around - no mysteries here.

Claims to be 'tied' but I do not agree. While the right-hand stamp is clearly 'tied' with a killer-cancel, (which does not look completely kosher to me?) the left-hand stamp's 'killer' cancel conspicuously disappears at stamps-edge?? How does the cancel on the left hand stamp not extend to the envelope??

When was US Post Department experimenting with perforating the stamps or the covers as a way of cancellation, please? Was it in 1860s? The two perfs on the right corners of the cover might be the clue here ...

I'm not an expert in this area, so my opinion is next to worthless, but my first visual impression when seeing the alignment and placement of the cancels vs. the stamps is that of a contrived cover. It doesn't ring genuine at all. It's as if portions of some of the cancels were drawn in to fit what was already on the stamps... just a poor job of it.

I wouldn't touch it, cert or not.

Thirst for solving mysteries seems contagious
Don, here is the cover using Gaussian filtering:





To me, it looks like there was a pair of stamps canceled at Skaneateles PO, relatively carefully removed, then a new pair of stamps was applied relatively on the same spot and canceled purposefully over the old cancellations. Hence, the double lines of the cancellations ... unless the Post Master was having severe Parkinson, of course

Of course, tampering remains the main supposition.

Don you mentioned the perfs from missing stamp are visible? I can't see this on my screen but there were no perf stamps available for a 1854 cover.