Could This Be A 321 Cover????

I need help with this its been in my collection for a long time and frankly wish to know if it might be SCOTT 321 coil pair??? Any one.

Hi Raftender - welcome to the forum!

Obviously not 321 - yours is perforated vertically, and 321 is perforated horizontally.

Guessing you meant 322, which is the vertically perforated coil.

Highly unlikely, and would require certification.

I would check the perforations first - #322 is perf 12, whereas the imperf stamp (#320) was perforated privately. The perfs on those are 12 1/2.

Our coil experts will chime in once they wake up. First thing they'll ask for is a much better scan, of just the upper right corner of your cover. Can't see the tops of the stamps at all with your picture...

Hi raftender, mdroth is right, we need a better scan. Don't need the whole cover, just get a hi resolution photo or scan of the two stamps in the upper right, with enough space around the stamps to see all the edges clearly.
The cancellation makes it a bit tough to see the top edge. The date of the cancellation is certainly promising though. Just right time.

I took a screen shot and increased it 500 times, Hope it helps.

In all likelihood, it is not a 322. It's an extremely rare coil, even more so in used condition. I don't believe the PF has certified any used 322's on cover as genuine. They are mostly faked 319's.

I know it doesn't seem possible that someone could soak off a pair of stamps, trim off a layer of perfs, then re-apply...but for 5k, that's what they do.

BalckJag,
No, your image doesn't help at all... we can all "Zoom" the size of the image you already have, but ou can see in your new posting, the stamps are just blurry digital magnifications. We need real OPTICAL magnification. Either via a scanner or a good macro zoom with a camera. If you have a high end smart phone, some of those cameras will do an OK job too, but this is just too grainy to be able to get any real detail out of. If the OP can retake/rescan and post?

Craigk,
You are certainly on the right track here. But it's not as hard to get a stamp off a cover as you might think. There is a specialist fluid known as "stamp lifter" which leaves no trace of it's application and is frequently used in expertizing particularly when there is a question of a grilled stamp on cover from the 1867 to 1871 issues. You may be spot on to how this one was achieved. And though the OP seems to have had it in the possession for a long time, it could be an old alteration.

CP - It appears above effort is a bit untidy, with some smearing of the cancel ink from the lift and then portions of it redrawn. A cleaner fake with a Dec 1908 date stamp-

thank you for the info I find it very interesting that every one automatically thinks it is a fake (SAD WORLD) I will try and get a closer picture not that easy but will do my best. Had this for a really long time. The envelope is also back stamped CARNEY OCT 25th

okay see if this works

okay some more close ups.

My suggestion is that you send this envelope to the Philatelic Foundation in NY for certification. The perfs look good, but that top edge that we're trying to see is blocked by that ugly, smeared cancel.

Everyone is skeptical because if real, this would be a rarity of monumental proportions. Faked coils are - unfortunately - very common.

Please come back after receiving your certification & let us know what they say!!

Just fyi...if this was faked, it is very possible that it was done in 1908. Or 1910. Maybe 1925. The fact that you've had it - for even 50 years - is somewhat irrelevant...

raftender,
If the community unilaterally said "it is real" the item would need a certification. And if you do not believe the community's opinion the item will still need a certification. So all roads lead to getting a certification for an item like this. The real value of posting items like this is that it can help you decide if you want to spend the money of certification or not.

I concur with the other folks, send it in for a cert and please come back and let us know the results.
Don

a high resolution scan would be helpful if you want any opinions.

look at the genuine 322 that have quite large margins at top and/or bottom:
http://pfsearch.org/pfsearch/pf_grd...lledfrom=lkp

what do you measure as a distance from top to bottom? it should be 24.5mm or even better 25mm (although this is difficult to measure and some coils can be sometimes also smaller, like 355 coils).

also, the straight edges don't seem parallel or even straight, but this could also because the two stamps have been stuck on the paper a bit quickly.

As noted through the entire thread, a high resolution SCAN is desired. Angled photos achieve very little.

That said, two things do come to mind. First, machine cancels are rarely blurred and watery like this one.

Second, the stamps seem too narrow between the straight edges. While this could be fakery, it could be simply that the original 1908 sender used a paper cutter to strip the stamps themselves to make application easier and just happened to remove the perforations along both the top and bottom with no intent of anything tricky.

Until a better image is posted, it is premature to justify the recommendation or expense of getting a certificate or not.

This is not a routine submission. A used 322 pair on cover is not even priced so, based on PF maximums, a cert could cost up to a $1000 UP FRONT (but reduced if the stamp is opined to be bogus).

Just on past history, I believe the PF has certified only 2 used examples ever, and zero in the last 35 years. The last time Siegel offered a used pair was 1993. And that had a PF cert from 1963.