Reliability Of Certificates

I am not angry. I sent them an email and tried to call. They are probably out for the weekend. I will get a hold of them but I am still waiting for the stamp to arrive. I want to be positive before I make any assumptions or post the item in question. I do appreciate your advice Bill and will contact them when I have the item in hand and have had a further examination of the stamp. I just wanted to point out that mistakes are sometimes still made even with today's technology. I am sure it will be corrected.

I believe APS is the only expertizing service to offer some type of guarantee.

"If you purchase an item with an APEX certificate describing the item as genuine and it subsequently is proven to be counterfeit, altered or misidentified, APEX will compensate you up to $5,000. The guarantee is valid for five years.

The guarantee does not apply to condition, such as thins, creases, gum disturbance, tears or gum loss, since condition can change after the certificate is issued."

Siegel often offers up lots of 'extension balances' consisting of items that were issued good older certs subsequently updated with problem certs. Unfortunately, many of those newer certs are deep sixed and the stamps end up on ebay with only the good older cert attached.

Bill Crowe elegantly echos what I said, and having been an expert for the PF has unique look at the changes and methods used and opinions rendered. the data base changes will eventually take place, but they and other services will always reserve the right to ask for a re-submission of an item

When considering a purchase of a stamp that I would otherwise expect to have a cert, I go through the PF database to see if the stamp HAD a cert from them at some point. Certs get 'lost' for various reasons. I have had a couple of candidates eliminated because a bad cert has been 'lost' over the years. If it was re-perfed in 1990, it is still re-perfed today, no matter what the seller's description says.

I just wish the other certifying entities put their databases online.

APEX does have some of its archival cert opinions on line at the APS website; just not all of them. PSE does also, but not the early numbered certs that had the photo in color on the front and the opinion and the names of the 3 expertizers on the back. I don't know what the cut off was but I have several of these from the early 1990's with cert numbers around 15000 or less. Not sure why PSE won't post them unless it is because of a front and back instead of just one side

PSE is not archived (in that you cannot research thru a common catalog no.) I imagine, as a for profit engine, they probably will never do so.