#613 Is There Any Real Believers

I find it amazing that when some find a stamp and the 2 possibilities are either printed in the billions or very rare they convince themselves that they must have the rare one.

That doesn't rule out the possibility of someone finding one. But the odds of getting struck by lightning or winning the jackpot in the Powerball lottery are better.

The lucky finders come to SCF with great frequency. Many of them cannot be convinced that they don't have a great rarity, no matter how compelling the evidence. However, all of them disappear once their discussion has run its course.

Agreed. The odds are much, much better of being stuck by lightning in your lifetime (1 in 3,000) than ever 'finding' a #613.
Don

So that answers my question. Every top dawg stamp collecter believes that the 613 is out there but very few believe that anyone else has one.

Sir, if you believe you have one, please send it in to get it certified! And give us the result,

Peter

Show us the certificate when you receive one. We would love to celebrate your fantastic find.

http://www.philatelicfoundation.org...ing-process/

Not yet got a bit busy lately but sending them this week to william crowe for expertizing.

I have the following going: 596, 596, 596, 594, 594, 594, 219d, 289, 331, 361, 361, 361, 361, 357, 357, 357, 358, 359, 364, 369, 387, 388, 405, 405, 423c, 424e, 424e, 464, 466, 498g, 498g, 499, 499, 499, 501, 501, 502, 506, 507, 509, 530, 538, 541, 544, 554d, 579, 579, 579, 583a, 583a, 595, 595, 613, 613

all of which have had the perf confirmed by digital measurement and stamp designs measured to confirm press type either rotary or flat and paper examined under 200x+ magnification with microscope for the bluish paper stamps to confirm presence of dark rag fibers so I expect 98% or better will come back genuine and I am sending with prelim certs with enlarged color scan at 600dpi and official measurements and retain a copy of that for my records in case any discrepancies occur which I doubt but better safe then sorry.

redwoodrandy,

I would not used PF after the recent convictions of staff and associates for fraud charges involving forgeries, invalid certs being issued for unchecked stamps etc and I am sure that a few submissions got the old switch out taking the genuine and sending back the submitter a common stamp claiming they misidentified their submission. I already have trust issues so PF gives me anxiety on top of that so aint going there.

Best of luck.

I have many others to be expertized that I just have not gotten around to double and triple checking before sending them in. I was not planning to have this become a full-time gig but when you buy 11 collections totalling over 4 million stamps it is simply unavoidable it appears. stopped answering the phone, wife is ready to leave me because stamps are everywhere and when she tries to tidy up I freak out if she touches a stamp its kinda funny but getting serious. lol

The one you posted looks reperfed to me

As this has never been shown here at SCF I really would like to see one of your possible bluish paper stamps showing the rag fibers, so with 200x magnification, this would be great, thank you already. I never achieved seeing the difference between rag fibers and wood pulp, as sometimes they can be similar. But I am not a paper expert at all, which is why I am interested to see your images.

"I would not used PF after the recent convictions of staff and associates for fraud charges involving forgeries, invalid certs being issued for unchecked stamps etc and I am sure that a few submissions got the old switch out taking the genuine and sending back the submitter a common stamp claiming they misidentified their submission. I already have trust issues so PF gives me anxiety on top of that so aint going there".

Please show some proof the the "recent convictions of the staff and associates for fraud". Especially since there have been none that would qualify for even remotely "recent".

I also did some googling, and can find nothing recent about PF frauds ... only an article from 1985.




I am also confused about this statement. Did you create your own certs just in case they came back with no opinion or fakes? Are you going to use these certs to try and sell your items?

Since you made scans of everything, would you mind posting a few for us to see? Thanks.