US # 104 Used With Incorrect Philatelic Foundation Certification

It is 2015 cert.

I expect that Bill Crowe's explanation is the correct one, it was probably felt that the stamp was scissor trimmed.

It's certainly an awful reperf job. Holes are too small and their spacing is bereft of regularity. The problem here is not simply how poor a job it is, but that the first thing one should be looking at on a jumbo-ish, well-centered stamp are reperforated straight edges. That's 75% - 90% of the stamp's value right there.

Collect stamps, not certificates. Know why you are paying so much for a stamp before you buy. A certificate should confirm what you should already know about an issue.

It is interesting to read all the comments. Generally, most are in the camp we're human & mistakes can be made.

The PF states you can collect in confidence if they provide a cert. They also claim to be the Gold Standard!

If this was a $100 or $200 stamp I would let it pass as someone was sloppy. However, for a $17,000 stamp I would expect a number of experts to review the stamp. I would also think that the lead expert would double check the info along with Larry Lyons who signed the document.

To miss an obvious doctored stamp means some trusting collector will take a hair cut on this stamp.

For the record, it is my understanding that Seigel's only uses PF certs. APS certs do not matter to them.

Now Bill Crowe's thoughts are interesting except the cert should have stated the stamp was scissor cut on the left side as that impacts the value of the stamp.(Personally I agree with Seigel's it was reperffed) The left side is a major problem and something should have been noted.

The fact that the PF missed this very obvious problem on a valuable stamp `should open a question about if the philatelic community can really trust a PF cert!

Since I only deal in facts, I find this situation to be very troubling and from my perspective I certainly would not call them the gold standard!

I only use the PF and will continue to do so because they are the gold standard for me. Can they make mistakes? Yes, just as every profession can and does. I get the sense that this is being blown out of proportion for some reason. Perhaps somebody has a bone to pick with the PF.

As Tipzi says, the holes are too small on the left, but as others have noted, no one is perfect. One (or several) bad certs is not enough to render the PF untrustworthy.

As has also been pointed out here, the catalog value has no relation to how well any stamp is looked at.

I'm glad you are all so comfortable with the PF. Personally, I wonder how they could make a "mistake" on a $17,000 stamp. Please read between the lines!

Siegel accepts APS certs without issue. PSE certs have been attached to about 30% of past lots.

608K-Reading between the lines shows that you have a strong dislike for the PF for your own personal reasons. Would a mistake (if it is one) be any different if it was a $100 stamp? A $500 stamp? A $1000 stamp? If so, why? A mistake is a mistake, they happen.

Please DON'T read between the lines. There's too much flogging of personal agendas as it is.

Siegel site says the cert was a 2015 PFC in a 2017 auction. As an agent for the seller, Siegel's can't just 'throw away' a cert with which they disagree. Also, I don't think it's really their responsibility to re-submit --- as someone upthread said, maybe there wasn't enough time to get through the PF system before the sale. (Also, isn't it only the owner of the cert that can re-submit? And is there a time limit?) I think they did what they could, they called it as they saw it. Remember, the cert is the owner's, as well as the stamp, and a re-submission could result in the owner's cert getting 'lost' due to Siegel's actions. Maybe the owner didn't WANT a new cert. It may not sound all too right, but maybe Siegel's hands were tied on the cert issue. They did what they could.

As for whether or not the PF gets it wrong every once in a while, I don't think even the PF would deny such a claim. Still, they are my go-to stamp cert organization for most things.

I am open to reconsidering who my go-to cert org is, if you can tell me which one never gets anything wrong.

They all occasionally make mistakes. I use PSE a lot, but really like the PF better when it comes to identifying color varieties.

For classic US stamps, at least, I think the PF is the "gold standard" -- at least I don't think there is any consistently better expertization service for those stamps. They are not, however, 100% accurate and they are not perfect; they will sometimes miss or omit something, and once in a while even get their opinion totally wrong.




While in principle I agree that multiple experts would be better, alas, I think you overestimate both the number of qualified experts available, as well as the amount of time each expert can devote to one cert. (I guess you can always resubmit to another service to get another expert opinion.)




A cert isn't a guarantee, but more than 99% of the time, a PF cert will be in substance correct. Collectors know that, on rare occasions, the cert will be wrong. But what's the alternative? There's personal expertise, of course, for which there is no substitute -- but if you do not have, yourself, the expertise to say confidently "this stamp is genuine and unaltered", then you're going to have to trust somebody's opinion. Better to have a neutral party with verifiable credentials (like the PF expert) express an opinion, than just trust the dealer/seller, who has a personal interest in selling you an expensive stamp.

I'm not sure I understand revcollectors statement responding to my post about old certificates and expertizers. I think many of us see opinions on certificates both old and new from all 4 major organizations that make us wonder or shake our heads. What I was referring to was documentation proving that the goal of any expertizers in the past was to just correctly I'd the stamp and let everything else slide. To my knowledge such documentation does not exist and i'm Thinking that it might be a stretch to try to assess the motive of early PF expert committee chairman the likes of Steinway, Lichtenstein, and Dale as other than getting it right. The early posted opinions on PF search show loads of faults being called on stamps from the very beginning.