Interesting $5 Columbian Scott 245 Cancel Added

While perusing the current Kelleher auction I came across this Scott 245 (Lot 709) shown below with conflicting certs and cancel added. It was also cleaned. Always interesting to me the lengths that people will go to deceive but this seems an odd deception.





https://stampauctionnetwork.com/V/v779101.cfm

A lot can happen in 20 years!

How badly cleaned? It would have turned an unsellable stamp into a sellable one with no gum. Add a cancel and voila!

Who let the middle name on the PSE cert sign off on stamps???

I suspect that the stamp was originally used, then cleaned and possibly regummed. At some point someone probably decided that the cleaning, etc was not convincing, so they added a fake cancel to give it a better chance at passing muster. Which it did the first time.

So, the question that I have is why someone would pay $840 with tip for this stamp? I know that the answer may be that we need to ask that bidder, but this seems a bit crazy UNLESS the buyer intended to "lose" the PF cert.

At the time of the original PSE cert used examples of high value Columbians were not selling for the multiples they are now. It was not widely known that a NYC area dealer was adding cancels to no gum stamps until about 10 years later. Scott Trepel as part of the Siegel firm was lotting up Thurston Twig-Smiths collection of used US and noted that certain cancels were coming up time again, but out of period for the stamps. He did a study and alerted the expertizing bodies to the problem. At the time of the second certificate the PF was much more aware of this problem.

Hi Bill Crowe —

You wrote…




Unfortunately, I know this "NYC area" dealer quite well — as he ripped me off for years until his scam was discovered. He was (and, based on an Internet search this evening, appears to still be) an ASDA member. I filed a complaint with the ASDA at the time — but in the end they said nothing could be done — (based on plausible deniability by the dealer?). So much for their so-called code of ethics. Very sad.

Most disappointingly — I recall a number of blue paper Washington Franklins and the blue paper Lincoln Memorial — all with with neatly struck and unobtrusive double oval Washington DC cancels — as well as a couple of 538a and 540a pairs with almost perfectly placed strikes of waving flag machine cancels — all initially receiving clean PF certs — but when resubmitted years later to PSE when the grading craze took hold — all came back as having fake cancels — along with a personal note to me from Bill Litle who attributed the bogus material to the "NYC area" dealer source you noted in your last post. Overall — dealing with this criminal was the absolute worst philatelic experience I have ever had.

I could go on and on about this guy — but even more surprising to me is that he was allowed to maintain his standing as an ASDA member.

Caveat Emptor !!

Regards // ioagoa

Edited to fix minor typos and grammar

I see a small line line going through the R of DOLLARS, pointing somewhat at Columbus' head, and wonder if this might be an old cancel. Perhaps the stamp was soiled - non-water-soluble substance - and someone decided to 'clean' it and the chemical(s) used left some residue, or perhaps some other visible sign (the tone of the paper seems a tad off, but then, so am I). Anyway, these 'anonymous' cancels (plain circles, or a cds without a readily visible city or date) are a red flag for me. The PO was generally pretty good at cancelling stamps and stamps with non-identifiable and 'face-free' and light/thin-lined cancels worry me. This one would worry me - it sure is pretty, and I have to question that.

Possibly discussed before but…

how do you chemically clean a stamp??

Obviously soap and water, peroxide are considered ok, but other chemicals are not? What are the other chemicals?

Who?!?!?!?!?!

Who is he so we can be sure to be careful if we are buying from this apparently still active dealer member of the ASDA?

What, are you maybe planning on big ebay sale? You really want the exact chemicals publicized just to satisfy your curiosity or ...?

In general, you need a solvent that dissolves cancel ink and not stamp ink. Bleaching agents will make certain inks transparent but can still be seen under UV and other lighting. That's going to be different chemicals in different situations that you may not be able to buy without what's called a chemical card. With differing compositions of printing ink, it has been possible to remove one color without disturbing the the others on a modern stamp. The late Stan Piller, who had a chemical card from before his stamp dealing days, trusted no modern US color errors because of that.

StateRevs,
The person in question is Alan Miller of NJ, I assumed that most folks were familiar with him.

I agree that the ASDA should be involved with these kinds of situations (including the other recent thread) and am mystified how it could be avoided by them (unless they did something well under the radar).
Don

Edit: A SCF search will reveal posts of 'self cert' and questionable cancels going back to around 2015. If the ASDA had investigated and communicated the findings of the investigation anytime in the last decade, this person could have been either exonerated or uncovered. But here we are still discussing it...

Edit Edit: Note - If I am not mistaken, ASDA rules prohibit other ASDA members from 'outing' each other. A policy that makes sense to me on one hand but can also have unintended consequences.

Hy-brasil,

When they reference chemically cleaning a stamp, I was under impression it was being cleaned to brighten up a soiled, perhaps toned stamp, make it look "new" and fresh.

I thought removing a cancel chemically is a bit different . The certificate above does not mention that cancel was removed.

I was under impression that above stamp did not have cancel removed, (or maybe it did)

I thought perhaps it was just freshened and cleaned up with some sort of bleaching technique .

It would be nice for us to know how to evaluate for this.

"Soiling" obviously comes in may degrees. Some things wash off, some things are pretty permanent. If bleached, UV is the one tool that we commonly have to detect stain removal and cancel removal, the stronger the better, and with longwave and shortwave ability.

Freshening? The stamp has still been altered by bleaching that will typically cause some degree of damage that might not become obvious for months or years. Then the stamp will become brittle and eventually self-destruct to powder. You can also go too far using bleaches, making a bright white stamp that never existed in real life and that will also fall apart sooner than later. Dilution of bleaches just causes less damage with one application and likely will not get the result you might want.

Toning is one of more permanent things, pretty hard to bleach out without damaging or destroying the stamp itself. Common bleaches/bleaching agents today often include optical brighteners that will add brightness to a bleached stamp seen under UV light.

Hi Don,

Thank you.

While I have certainly heard of him, I didn't know he was alleged to have been involved in forged canx.

Thanks again!!