Scott 120A - No Grill

Just purchased this beauty and on the way to get cert from PSE. According to Siegel only 23 exist. If true, this has to be one of the nicer examples...

A beauty! Nice tease from the front side. What does the back side look like?

Top perfs digitally compared to the other sides.



Don

Does your stamp have gum? If so would it be possible to the gum side? There is a difference between the gum on a Scott 120a and the gum on the re-issue.

This was purchased on ebay from Philip Ryle/The Cartel:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1869-US-Pi...AOSwIiVe7hDM

Mongoose - You purchased this reperfed stamp (and probably other things as well) from a scam artist that is in jail at the moment.

Do a SCF search for "cartel" to learn more.

This is the scumbag - https://www.somersetcountygazette.c...r-vat-fraud/

The sellers name is Lona and she's located in the UK. She has 100% positive feedback on ebay and had many other expensive lots for sale. This was the only stamp that I won, however the bottom does appear to be reperfed. Can anybody else in this community confirm? She claims that the stamp is sound and was purchased through either Siegel or HR Harmer some decades ago. She stated that I could get a 100% refund if not satisfied and I've had good luck with ebay stepping in with any issues.

Here is a picture of the back.

Are you 100% sure that "bank-notes" is a scammer? If so, is the stamp that I purchased fake?

I really appreciate the expertise from everyone in this community on this issue.

When I look at the ebay item from here, the seller's base is shown as "Cardiff by the Sea" in California.

The following is my opinion. I am 100% sure that this is Philip Ryle. He is notorious for selling altered stamps. He and his 'agents' (his girlfriend and other lackeys) have continued his deceptive listings while he is building time in prison.

As someone who is into investments and is buying higher end stamps, you will need to spend as much time learning who you are buying from as you do what you are buying.

As other have suggested, doing a search on this forum will reveal a number of threads where his practices have been exposed. Alternatively, you can do other online searches and learn more. keep in mind that many people will not speak out against him because he is also known for retribution; they are literally scared of him. Even in this community he has attempted several times to make fake profiles and pretend to be someone else (which is his M.O.).

Lastly, 100% ebay feedback is meaningless. As is proven with this transaction, even convicted criminals and fraudsters can have 100% feedback. ebay's feedback system is badly flawed and is 100% controlled by ebay who has a vested interest in making buyers feel good about dealing without seeing what they are buying from someone half way around the world. You have been duped by both Ryle and ebay. Read the link above, he was running shell companies and often would buy and sell between them (giving himself positive feedbacks). Why would you think that 100% feedback was meaningful when the article says he was buying and selling to himself?

By the time you get this stamp, send it in for a cert, and then try to return the stamp to the UK (and he will force you to return it to him in the UK), chances of any recourse will be very slim. The fact that his listings shows him as a US seller but they are really located in the UK should speak to you. Between the wait for a cert and the wait to return the stamp to the UK this would be a nerve racking process.

There have been a few people who managed to get recourse on a transaction, typically they are those who he thinks he can keep in playing for a even bigger deception.
Don

GeoffHa,


An ebay listing is easily configured to show an item in any country you want it to show, but it is much harder to change the account location (click the feedback of a seller to see where the seller account is actually located).

Scammed.

First of all it should be clear that Ryle and his flunkies are flat out criminals. That being said before making a purchase like this a buyer should ask themselves the following questions:

1) Why is a $14,000 stamp being sold on ebay with no certificate?
2) Why is a $14,000 stamp being sold in an ebay auction starting at 99 cents?
3) Why is it that a genuinely rare stamp with a census of 23-24 total in all conditions is not being sold by a major auction house?
4) How is it that a $14,000 stamp of which there are only four known with original gum turns up on ebay with centering that if graded could make it a $50,000 plus stamp AND it has no certificate and the bidding starts at 99 cents.

You were actually bidding against the seller himself. As rogdcam mentions, he starts at 99 cents. He can do this because he knows that he will bid it up to the number he wants. He has 40-50 accounts including some he only uses for bidding and other which he uses to build up 'sales' and feedbacks on.
Don

This is possible even at $.99. But if it _did_ happen then it would not be advertised as a $14,000 stamp. It would be an amateur listing of a random stamp perhaps without knowledge of Scott numbers. Or it might be stuck on a page in an inherited album.

Highly unlikely yes? But much more so, than the expectation of a super high priced stamp offered at min priced bidding.

One more point, only 1 of these 120a sold for 4x cat price. All others sold for rougly 3-4k or less, with the exception of 1. Nearly all have documented provenance (which doesn't mean much to me per se), but more importantly they have certs. Buying grill stamps without authenticity validation is a highly risky proposition. Particularly this one, because the back of the stamp is so wonked.

bank-notes is one of Ryle's more frequently used personae.

Is there a running list of his psuedonyms available from anyone here? I would love the block them all...this is terrible and I am disappointed that ebay doesn't value honesty at least a bit. I get their MO is to make money but this is outright known scamming and theft. Brutal.