This is a very interesting thread to me as I have always been interested in the expertization process as well as the relationships reputations and acceptance of the 3 major expertizing services in the United States: PF, PSE, APEX. I will list Weiss and PSAG as secondary services, not in terms of quality of opinions but in terms of my perception of relative usage by both the collecting public and auction houses like Siegel.
In my opinion, these services are compared to each other and by each other by several factors: scholarship, competition for business, and economics. If we accept the fact that nobody is born a stamp expertiser and that one's experience and reference library are usually the distinguishing factors then the PF has a leg up on everybody due to their reference collection. On the other hand the early opinion of the PF are often bashed by some as representing only dealers and serious collectors as opposed to "professional." This is the logic by some as to why, in their opinion the emphasis on early certs was stamp ID and not condition.
Of course the APS goes back much further than the PF and their expertizers, even today consist of the same elements to a degree that the early PF did. They also theoretically should have an archives of certificates going back many years preceding the PF, but where the PF has managed to show many of the earliest certs on line, for some reason the APS has not. Bill Weiss certified for the APS at a minimum. He was very outspoken but also very frank about his expertizing philosophy: he called everything, even the tiniest of flaws needing megamagnification.
I personally have no problem with Bill Weiss certs although my reason for obtaining them has more to do with speed, cost, and the economic impact of acceptance by auctions—with Siegel in mind. I don't think an auction house such as Siegel, and here I use Siegel as an example of a top notch firm as example, really has any use for anything other than a graded PSE cert or a PF cert, graded or not. Any stamp that they feel worth their while for auction that has Weiss, APEX, or PSAG cert they are going to recommend getting recertified by the PF or the PSE for grade. I say this with reluctance as I have a Scott 112b, genuine, disturbed og, but with an APEX cert. what I say in general above I am sure will be recommended to me. I submitted stamps to Weiss that was interested in being ID'd or to segregate those stamps of sufficient catalog value that might be worth sending up the chain to the PF. For these services, bill could not be beat for speed and economy. I would not, however, buy an expensive stamp on the basis of a Bill Weiss cert.
I also think that in terms of certain people and certain organizations, there is a certain amount of ego involved. Bill Weiss certs, though they may be entirely correct will never be accepted as the equivalent of PF, PSE, APEX, and maybe even PSAG, because of the power of organizations over individuals, and because he came from a clearly commercial background prior to setting up his expertizing service, no matter his degree of expertize.
So, if you are just collecting for fun, Weiss certs are fine. But when you want to translate "fun" into dollars, anything worthwhile should be submitted to the big boys, and we all know who sits at the top of the heap, regardless as to whether, at the end of the day, one organizations experts are really "better" than their competitors. |
Posted 06/30/2019 08:59 am
