Old PSE Certificate - "Expertizing" Vs. "Experts"?

I have PSE cert 19819 dated 4/16/93.

To be honest, it made sense to me when PSE requested that the older certs not be publicly published.

A cert is a paid opinion and is supposed to convey confidence to the cert purchaser that their material is what they think it is. In my opinion there are many self-inflicted things which work to undermine the confidence that the various cert organizations are trying to sell. (I do not differentiate between 'profit' and 'non-profit' cert organizations. Consumers are buying these opinions and I think that they deserve to receive the 'peace of mind' service they are paying for no matter how the organization may be filing their taxes. The United Way is just as much a business as Ford or Microsoft.)

I think that certs can be wrong, certs can change over time, certs can have discrepancies and mistakes, certs have shelf life, certs have little transparency and certs add little value when trying to understand the provenance of the material we are buying. These are things that can be improved if the desired is to increase confidence in the service. I was pleased when PSE agreed to publish at least some of their data as I took it as an indication that they are interested in increasing confidence in their service.

But just how much confidence is there in old certs? Is there a generally agreed upon date that a cert is considered stale? If confidence is based upon the expert(s) who actually did the cert how is this determined when most certs do not have these names or dates? How does a hobbyists/consumer understand the track record of a certifying organization or expert? Which stamps are the most frequently misidentified? Which experts have the best track records and in which areas of expertise?

If a cert organization does not want older certs publicly published, then should it also not want the old certs being used to promote and sell stamps? Should everyone (hobbyists, dealers, firms, etc.) agree that certs older then XX not be used in promoting a stamp or cover?
Don

This is my favorite PSE Cert that I paid for!

Don - I would strongly disagree. I ALWAYS want to know who certified or examined my patient. If the names are on a cert, such as the older PSE certs, I go by my opinion of the experts. All the others certificates are without merit to me.

PF and PSE (graded) certs have some market value that goes stale in whatever time frame the market dictates. Still, of no value to me as to the trustworthiness of the opinion. APS certs are a red flag to me that something likely is wrong (except recent certs for EKUs, and very old certs signed by DeVoss for Canal Zone overprints).

I ignore all certs from the PF and PSE certs for certain specialty items based on the current experts, and my opinion regarding a lack of expertise in very narrowly defined areas.

The biggest problems I see are on used stamps. The experts are mostly very good on faults, reperfs, etc but too often have little experience with what certain genuine cancels should look like. I see mistakes on used #39s and often on some (mostly) second level fancy cancels.

I send an email to PSE about the certificate and got a nice note back from Kristine there. Explains a bit about the age of this one:

Shows the limited knowledge of the spokesperson for PSE if she didn't know that dates appeared on PSE certs as far back as 1989 at least. See my prior post on page.

Stallzer, couldn't resist on this one. You think normal prescriptions look bad? I'm a pharmacist by education but haven't worked behind the counter in over 11 years. In pharmacy school back in the '70s, in Pharmacy Practice Lab, one of the old professors used to write prescriptions with his left foot! Those were worse