Scott 38 — 30¢ 1860. Legit?

At a stamp show looking at used examples of #38 (30-cent). This one caught my eye because it's got a bottom frame line that's not supposed to be there. That would be the reason for me to get it. However...

As I was examining it, the booth assistant mentioned that the cancelation looked fake. I'm an essay & proof guy so I'm not used to dealing with cancels. Anyway, when I pointed this out to the owner of the firm, the assistant backpedaled furiously on his comments about the cancel, leaving me feeling like I threw him under the bus. Awkward! But anyway...

What do you think, O Stamp Community people with more experience than myself regarding cancels on classic stamps? Does the cancel look good? And what about the perfs, especially on the right side?

The perfs were the first thing I noticed, and not just the right side. The bottom don't look good either. I would check all four sides very carefully.

I agree with Bart on the both the right side and bottom perfs. The cancel does not ring alarm bells for me.

The top perfs do not look a whole lot better either?


Peter

Held a transparent ruler up to the screen and none of the 4 sides look good...

I am more interested in your comment about the bottom frame line. What does that tell you?

Thanks to everyone so far for chiming in.

@StateRevs, the bottom frame line is only seen in die proofs. It is not present in plate proofs or the issued stamps.

So it's possible that someone back in the past took a trimmed die proof without knowing what it was, and added fake perfs to it. And maybe a fake cancel to focus they eye, so they might not look at the perfs carefully.

It seems highly unlikely if not impossible. The only orange die proofs you see offered, 38P1, are on India. 38P3 plate proofs are on India. They mostly exhibit the bottom line except for one 38P3 that I found on Siegel that did not have the line (mistake?) Scott lists others on stamp paper but they are rare, expensive and Siegel has no records of selling them that I could find.

Alas, we don't know what paper this stamp is on. Can't tell from a scan.

Well, I would think that India, given it's unmistakable characteristics would be mentioned by anyone seeing the stamp in person. Unless it was backed with something?

Or stiffened. Although someone as familiar with proofs as ESSAY_PROOF is would probably know quickly.

Thanks again for all of your collective comments. To my eye, the paper doesn't look like India.

For about the past month I've been investigating the essays and proofs of this stamp rather intensely, an offshoot from this thread: http://goscf.com/t/83168

My study revealed that there are many examples of cut-to-stamp-size P1s misidentified as plate proofs, and generally the margins are really tight. Always on India. The main take-away from my study was that the lower frame lines are only present on the P1s (and large die TCs). Turns out this was not a new discovery. Elliot Perry identified this (though not explicitly) in his writings in the 1930s on the multiple-relief transfer roll used to enter the design into the plate. In short, the lower frame line seen in the large die prints (regardless of color) was burnished off the transfer roll.

I've also done a plating study using photos from the Ashbrook archives on the USPCS website, and scans of large multiples from the Siegel website and elsewhere. This stamp has no matching position. I doubt that somehow this line "made it through" on any of the 200 plate positions. It's definitely not present on the bottom row of either the L or R pane.

Hence the mystery of what this stamp is.

I have the opportunity to buy it at a good price for a used copy, but still, I'm suspicious.

I'm actually way out of my element with regard to actual canceled stamps.

I thought that perhaps it was from the recut bottom position 52L1 but it is not. I found a block that consists of positions 41-42/51-52L1, C/B reliefs at Siegel that shows a minor recut of at least the left bottom scroll, but the additional line is not present. 52L1 is the bottom right stamp in the block.

I'm amazed that 52L1 was singled out by the philatelic scholars of yore, but there is something distinctive about it.

So... I have the happy ending to the story. First, thanks again for your collective input. Your evaluations of the perfs were a real eye-opener for me. I also sent the photo to Jim Lee and Charlie DiComo for their take. Both questioned the perfs, so here we have a case of "great minds think alike." Charlie identified the cancel as New Orleans, and noted that the color of the line at bottom was different from the rest of the stamp.

I found someone at the show to put the stamp through its paces. He dipped it and found several repairs. He also checked the perfs with an expertizer's perf gauge, and made several comparisons with a genuine stamp. Here was his verdict:

• reperfed on 3 sides
• bottom right corner likely to have been repaired
• stamp was probably torn at the bottom for about 60% of its width from left to right. This was repaired by replacing it with the top from another defective stamp, and that would explain the line at bottom.

I ended up purchasing the stamp at a significant discount. Regardless of the repairs, it's a nice-looking stamp and I'll have a great story to include in the article I've been writing about the 30¢ 1860 essays and proofs.

So thanks again everyone. Much appreciated!

That's quite the story...