Stamps From Second Cia Invert Pane Found

rismoney --- Are you serious??? Mark knows his stuff......do you think he will put his name and reputation behind this if it was not genuine???

Jacques C. Schiff Jr. did not nor did he need a certificate to prove what he had was real.




See comment after first quote in this post. And yes, he had the BEP on speed dial; but more importantly, the BEP took his calls.

I am not insinuating the authenticity of the stamp isn't real/genuine. I believe it is real. I am suggesting that the provenance be revealed around its origin, and how it came to be in his hands, and not some fable.

"When questioned about the plate block coming from a new pane, he wouldn't specifically comment."

Come on. A known stamp dealer for decades has nothing to say on a top 10 rarity discovery? When you are being opaque, you're hiding things, and you're sketchy. It's a stamp find, not the launch codes to a missile silo.

Or the original owner/discoverer doesn't want to be identified or put in the limelight.

Understood. If it were almost anything else - no problem.

But given the controversy around the original find ....

edit: I realize that nothing says the CIA necessarily ever handled a second sheet.

What controversy? The BEP printed one press sheet, cut it into four panes. None were known to be destroyed by the BEP nor the USPS. They were delivered to the USPS for sale and some, if not all were sold.

The shadiest possibility is that a USPS clerk noticed them and bought them for themselves contrary to the rule of not selling error when found. Time passes and the buyer tells the family to not sell these until after I am dead.

It is the moniker than helped make the headlines. If the first purchase was made by Micheal's Discount Mail Order Wines or Mary's Corner Electric Supply, mainstream media likely would have not run with the story. Micheal's Bottoms Up Invert? Mary's Inverter Invert? Nope, not happening.

Seriously?

eyeonewall - Exactly

The original CIA folks may even have been in possession of the panes and concealed them or friends associates profited. Any number of angles. US postal inspection should be all over this.

Its not the Nixon one, but questions need to be asked and answered.

Otherwise, maybe Ill buy it with my DB Cooper windfall.

If there were ever an item that required due diligence prior to purchase this would be it. Anyone that is going to drop mid-five to six figures will need more than a mysterious plot line for this block.

True dat, rogdcam! Only a fool would plunk down what this item will bring, without it having an unequivocally CLEAR cert. And to whichever cert org it goes, they will have to prove that it is real and not just a good fake. It looks like the supply has just about doubled overnight.

Call me crazy, but I have a distrust of many EFOs in general. (I distrust that I would ever truly know if I understood the real population. Given my luck, someone would be sitting on a horde, ala Black swamp baseball card saga, and it would come to light right after I made my purchase.)
So for me, adding 'CIA' and 'less than ideal' transparency on top of my existing EFO distrust makes it even more dicey.
Don

Well, to close the loop on my eariler post in this thread:

Lot 107 in the Cherrystone auction yesterday was hammered for $ 14,000.
So a bit more than the average hammer at Siegel over recent years for the 1610c, but not a lot.

One might conclude that the news of a second pane coming into the marketplace did not cause the bottom to drop out of the market for singles of this error.

Long term, though, if the discovery of a full second pane is confirmed and those stamps brought into the marketplace, supply would be doubled, so one would think the price per would come down.

Compared to the inverted Jenny, it is a rather clunky looking thing. Just no elegance or charisma IMO.

I agree. There is a certain "je ne sais quoi" to an airplane flying upside-down which, no doubt has made that so desirable.

definition: je ne sais quoi - an indefinable elusive quality, especially a pleasing one.

That was my thought - it's a dull stamp in a rather horrible colour combo. 1970s English living-room springs to mind.

Schiff was quite tight lipped about the original find and no one knew errors better than him.




Yes, seriously. Controversy was driven by the media, not the facts.

Edit:



There is no such thing. History and historic rules get changed on whim every day and certificates are even more fluid.