Uh Oh! I Bought A US Revenue From One Of Our Favorite Oft-Cricized Ebay Sellers

As has been discussed recently, ebay seller boots4222 offers some egregious fakes. However, amongst the bogus there are also genuine items and occasionally ones that are worth pursuing. I mentioned an extremely attractive R132 with a cert, that garnered real money at $2,640 vs. a catalog value of $3,500. Barring unrevealed faults, a very nice stamp... but beyond my pay grade.

About a week ago, an astute user of my website alerted me that an example of Scott #R15e (2c USIR on green paper) that I had listed in my census was on ebay if I was looking for a better image than what I already had. I thanked him and figured while I was at it I would set a lowball snipe, not expecting to win.

For some reason I won it, and despite the stamp being flawed, IMO it's a heck of a deal just given the scarcity of the stamp. In my opinion, even with the defective corner it's worth at least 20-25% of Scott given that it is sound otherwise and has a cert. It's a truly scarce stamp.

I've now owned 4 examples of R15e: two purchased with certs and two that I found in collections and subsequently gotten clean Philatelic Foundation certs on. This stamp has all the correct attributes: 1866 cancel, distinctive thin green paper, almost translucent. Not to mention that the 3 expertizers listed on the 1991 PSE cert are noteworthy.

Thank you for posting this and the story that comes with it.

Congratulations on the acquisition, Dan.

Reading with interest. Never paid attention to this variety before. Revenuecollector, what's the story behind the green paper?

And how scarce is it?

The green paper was probably either an experiment or a mistake. However it is known that Butler & Carpenter did have trouble getting good paper at times, which is why the experimental silk was used starting in 1869. The green paper was used in 1866, but that is about all that is known; both the Bank Check and the USIR label stamps exist on it.

revcollector, many thanks.

Scott values it at $2,500.00. I've turned up 26 reported examples in my census:

https://revenue-collector.com/R15ecensus.shtml

Looks like your example is census #13. Wracking my brain now to recall whether B&C's order books have been transcribed or published. Looked through the B&C archives for mention of experimental paper and in 1866 they wrote about the potential for using "anti-anastatic paper." Wondering out loud if there might be a connection.