This Cover Is Making Me Nuts

Just to be clear: it's one year and two months earlier.

I will say that I now think this cover has a decent shot at being good, but can only fully be expertised in person.

A BIG thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread (and contacted me privately), it has been educational. It is a great gift when others are willing to share their experience and expertise.
Don

Don, What did you learn and what do you now think of the cover?

I too would be curious to know Don.

If only someone had thought to contact the seller (i.e., me). I am finally stumbling across this.

It's a known correspondence, which I think reduces the risk of something bad happening with the cover after the fact.

I took a look under UV and there doesn't seem to be anything painted in. I don't think there are any perf impressions; that's a visual artifact. It's hard to expertise from a scan.

This all said, I still agree with my original assessment, which is that there is something odd about this cover (but I think it happened at the time of sending). I will get a few opinions from folks at the March Party and see if anyone can fully explain what happened here.

Winston,
I learned that it is sometimes possible for stamps to leave gum residue on a cover which in turn might result in unusual cancels. For example, if the stamp slide after affixing and/or were replaced it could then be that the original gum remain and then was cancelled. At some later date, it could be that the gum was removed and took the cancel with it. At other times, it could be that the gum removal might leave a partial cancel.

Matt,
I know you to be a very good and conscientious seller. I know that you would not offer a cover that you felt was bogus and it has a cert that was probably done by a well respected expert. As such, I thought it would generate an educational discussion.
Don

A few unsolicited thoughts from an intermediate collector and curious engineer who likes to solve problems. Covers are innocent until proven guilty. If something doesn't look right, look for a logical explanation on how it could occur through legitimate circumstances. Don't let your imagination run wild. Always consider comments from others, but take them with caution, even if others agree. After first examination, put the cover down and look at it again in a couple of hours. You will likely see something different or new. Things like magnification and UV light are incredibly useful, but so is looking at the cover as a whole.

If the circumstances needed for it to be a fake are far, far less likely than those for it to be legitimate, it might be real. But, also remember, very good fake covers (e.g., Fox) are out there – ones none of us would recognize as being fake. If you are interested in fakes and forgeries, see the SCRAP collection at USPCS website.

I think that this has been a useful and interesting discussion, which I would hope illustrates for some readers, part of the decision process for expertising a cover.

This is an example of a cover, which may well be genuine, but that definitely exhibits reason(s) to question that.

The ones to be afraid of are the covers that don't exhibit any reason to question them, at least not off-hand, but in fact, are good fakes. Back in Ashbrook's day, I think some cover fakes were a bit easier to spot, since Postal History wasn't so advanced. Fakers didn't understand all of the rates and requisite markings that need to appear on covers. So, you might see covers with nice stamps and non-sensical postal markings for the usage.

In the case of this cover, the postal markings are correct for the usage. That is a big mark in its favor - more so since it is the slightly scarcer American Packet use. In fact, I'd expect that there likely is a red "NYC Am Packet" CDS on the reverse, dated either Sep 2 or Sep 1.

Of course stamps get removed from a cover and replaced with different stamps for nefarious reasons all too often. In the case of this cover, I still don't know for sure what happened -- but several people made some very good observations which could well explain what we see.

Well said, much better than my half baked answer. (But in my defense I wrote my reply while getting chemo so I blame that!)
Don

paperhistory wrote:


Not necessarily. As today with one well-centered classic in a multiple, the advantage in $$$ to the seller would induce the cover owner to soak off an exceptional pair, perhaps even to get just one exceptional single. Further there are covers missing stamps from famous correspondences (perhaps when found), so while being great study material, they provide material for the forger.


That's good, and there's no markings glowing due to modern ink?; thanks for checking this. I still have my doubts, but hope you get a definitive answer when showing this to knowledgeable folks who can examine this cover first hand. I'm sure we'd all like a report afterwards, if that's not too much trouble.

northernvirginiaguy wrote:


I would say acquiring covers require a degree of skepticism. The individual points can have logical explanations, but not when there are many uncommon circumstances at the same time. Unaddressed by others was why there is a red "2" at the top that conveniently ties the pair. It's not a "3" unless it's an offset/setoff from another cover. To me, it's too strong for that. Mistake? Could be, but that's just another uncommon circumstance among several. A different "3" marking? Possible but again very unlikely. At what point do we go from "reasonable doubt of guilt" to "a preponderance of evidence"?

The main feature of Fox covers is that they are too good to believed (by a skeptic, anyway) with wanted covers (patriotics, for one) in high quality (there are still many sound unused envelopes around) with full strikes of markings. There was no provenance/track record for them. Not impossible, but quite unusual. Like The Cartel, these were offerings of things highly prized by collectors in supposed very high quality. You might indict me for being immediately skeptical about things like these unless you are familiar with the range of condition of (say) genuine 19th Century covers out there. There is also a common "look" to them which I think one can pick up while going through the USPCS site. Fox continued to sell these covers until his death but was known for producing forgeries for a long time (and kicked out of the APS years before, though for reasons not known to me); no accusations were made or printing of articles was done at the time for fear of being sued. The stamp world rumor mill is bad enough.

So a fraudster would put both a red 2 and red 3, did not finish the circle on the CDS but filled in the letters, etc.?

"If the circumstances needed for it to be a fake are far, far less likely than those for it to be legitimate, it might be real."

My guess -

1) The cover was stuck by 3 CDSs at SKANEATELES.

2) The two cancelling the stamps were incomplete, because of a fold in the envelope and a sloppy job. The stamps appeared barely canceled.

3) The PM in NYC got pissed because some small town PM did a poor job, and put on the grids and 2 red 3s(I see it as another 3, not a 2) to better cancel the stamps.

It is totally legitimate. But again, that's an opinion.

Things mentioned in this post that are likely not true:

Stamps were removed.
Perforated stamps were removed.
The cancel on the stamp(s) were struck twice.
The stamps should be more toned.
The stamps are not tied correctly.
Some letter are drawn in the cancellation.
There is something underneath the stamps.
There is both a red 3 and 2.
The cover should have a red 19.
The cover should have a NY transit postmark.
The cover can't date from 1854.

"Don't let your imagination run wild."