Do You Think This USA #293 Is Reperfed?

You were delighted with the windfall when your graded certs came back. If you buy a bad stamp at auction, though, you expect to return it and be made whole? You had an opportunity to inspect it too.

I still take the position that the auction house, being a broker rather than a seller, owes some duty of care but not a 100% free ride.

Maybe you are collecting/investing. It should be obvious I have little sympathy for investors. They have bid me up too many times at auction when I was only buying for the joy of collecting, knowing better than they what I was trying to buy.

We're not that different I think, I'm certainly not seeking an argument and I respect your opinion.

The 293 looked reperfed to me FWIW. Those are huge margins for that issue, I can see why it caught your attention.

Could someone not bid you up and still enjoy collecting.

Well, it depends on the auction house. If asked, many will withhold payment to the owner until the item can be certified. The buyer then has 30-60 days to obtain a certificate.

Dealers especially use this option because, surprisingly enough, many things come back re-perforated, re-gummed, re-backed, etc.

Try asking the auction house if you can do this. You may have to eat the cost of the certificate, but at least you won't get stuck with a bad item.

I've highlighted some of the problem areas on the original stamp. The black line is touching the top of the perf holes on some perfs but there is a gap to others - red circles showing some spots. The two green squares are the same width. The first square edges go right through the middle of the first two perfs. The second square misses the second perf almost entirely. So the 2nd and 3rd perf are much closer together than the first and second.

It is not true that no one would bother to reperf the two cent. They have, many times. Usually to improve the centering.

Thanks risny & revcollector. I think my 2 cent shows some of the same issues as the stamp in the OP. The fourth perf hole from bottom left seems to be further away from the stamp frame. Do you think this is a case of a 2 cent reperf?

Just for purposes of discussion, mine is shown below. (The same stamp as my avatar.) Please don't tell me this is reperforated ...

Nice stamp, Partime!

When I was starting out, learning how to spot a reperf was incredibly difficult! I was actually told, when I asked for help, that I would simply have to look at more stamps and I would (somehow...) learn what is good and what is not. Depending on the era or issue, some red flags on one stamp may be completely normal on another. Even after 40+ years, I find a good reperf job hard to detect! I wonder how any (really good) reperf jobs never get detected, even by widely accepted experts.

The trick is to look at as many online auctions as possible and look specifically at the stamps marked as reperforated and compare the perfs with the other sides. The more you do this the more proficient you will become at recognizing both the proper and improper shapes of perfs. Also look at the back of inexpensive stamps to learn what perfs look like from the back. Use at least a 10x glass to examine perfs. 15x is better still.

Draw the line on this stamp at the top and bottom.

It's never easy. Siegel often offers "extension balance lots" rife with early good certs that have been updated with reperfs, pinholes, etc. There are a number of those currently offered on ebay using the old cert as proof of soundness, while the new cert has been 86'd into the trash bin.

Also, Siegel has sold many re-perfed 293's. They go for $550 before the 15% markup. The Modern does say "disturbed gum" but does not say if it's original.

The moral of the story is you should always obtain a recent certificate when purchasing a higher catalog value stamp (you decide the parameters) whether it comes with the stamp at auction or you request an extension. If purchased retail the same applies. The stamp without a cert hat you think is too good to be true probably is. There will be plenty of folks that will disagree and will trot out examples from their own experience that say otherwise but why bother not following this rule.

Note: Always read Terms and Conditions. In this case Modern does do extensions. You pay for the cert cost and it is not a reimbursable cost.

I put lines on all sides. Hopefully you can see them. A few perfs are just slightly out of alignment at top left, but I think it looks good. Comments?

Your stamp is not reperfed.