Stamps From Second Cia Invert Pane Found

I give my British wife grief about this topic all the time.

There is a "green" that only exists in old British carpet - found nowhere else in the world. I think there was one carpet factory in the UK in the 70s, and it only produced one color: weird British carpet green. Nothing like "British Racing Green" at all!

It's probably sought-after retro-chic now. "Mid-century classics". The browns and oranges were definitely much in evidence back then.

The 50 cent, $1, $2 and $5 Americana grouping all show candle or lantern light, which in life the background fades to brown as you look farther from the flame source. The Americana series tried to make grouping of four related subjects per theme.

https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamp...contentlinks

sorry not believing any of these guys.

So, the plot thickens. I agree with RISMoney when it comes to believing. Wayne's article also uses the word "possible" a lot. IMO there is/are dealer(s) that are and have been making sure that the market is not disrupted by a very public increase in supply of these errors.

The Linn's article mentions that Area 51 also found some.
Don

So are you two saying you don't believe the reported stamps are real, BEP printed, USPS issued and sold stamps?

Or are you saying you believe the stamps exist but you don't believe anything said about them?

Are you going to blast the first reported find because Schiff sold 50 to Mystic Stamp Company?

Speaking for me, myself and eye, there are too many suppositions, assumptions, big fat guesses and other ambiguous components to the "discovery" stories. There is no clear pathway for the stamps and given their history and government involvement in the first "discovery" I really do not believe in anything other than they are genuine.

How many are really in the wild or in captivity? How many were really produced? Has there been manipulation of supply for financial gain? Could a buyer of the recent stamps truly have clear title to the property? Is the CIA cloud seeding? Is the laptop real? Awaiting the CNN deep dive on these stamps in order to get to the truth.

"In addition, the existence of a second error pane has been known to some since at least 2018 and quite probably much longer than that."

A strange statement since later in the article he writes:

"According to Dowoit, Nalbandian possibly obtained the plate strip from Schiff's stock sometime during the late 1990s, thus setting the clock for awareness of the second pane back another 20 years from 2018."

"If that is the case, then Schiff might have been in possession of the second pane at some point, and he might have sold several examples from the second pane, with buyers perhaps believing they came from the CIA pane."

How does Nalbandian owning the "new" plate strip make it any more (or less) likely that Schiff might have owned it at some point??


"What is not yet confirmed is whether the entire second pane survived or just the plate strip. Given the pristine nature of the plate strip, it is possible that the remaining 80 stamps also survived. If someone knew enough to save an entire post-office fresh plate strip, they likely also knew it was a major error."

Very likely indeed.

"Many of the principal characters involved with this story are no longer alive or are unable to remember, so the origin of the second pane's discovery might remain a mystery."

or unwilling to remember

"It is a long-accepted and somewhat willfully overlooked fact that many, but far from all, major errors are not strictly sold over post office counters. Post office clerks aren't blind, and some may be open to making a slight profit from their discoveries that would have to be kept quiet in order to avoid violating USPS rules."

True, but in the case of the item under discussion, PURE speculation.

"It is possible that Schiff was contacted by an employee of another Washington, D.C., area post office, who discovered one of the error panes. If Schiff then bought the second pane, perhaps he might have been attempting to control the flow of this major error."

Again, PURE speculation. And if you believe Dowoit saying Schiff did own it, then his very silence confirms he tried to control it.

Behind every great fortune lies a great scandal...
(apologies to Honoré de Balzac for hijacking his quote and making a modification)
Don

I will state, I believe the stamps are real and genuine. Any "stories" about them are fictional.

It is obviously clear that there is a cast of characters (obvious dealers) that have known about this and concealed their existence for monetary gain. Don is spot on, and to think these sheets/strips were not initially obtained through deceitful means is naive. Whether they were obtained via CIA workers and successfully concealed and offloaded to dealers like Schiff or via unscrupulous postal workers themselves is most likely. It is highly doubtful they sold via an over the counter bonafide discovery, or else just folks would have come out with their finds.

So what is the catalyst for the recent offering? I have no evidence... So in reviewing the events of the last 5 years...My hunch....I suspect it has something to do with a recent error dealer's passing and the sale of his assets. I can't think of anything else. My belief is that some assets possessed needed to have their origins obfuscated due to their prominence requirement to deny culpability. This is why people are now coming forward. Posner, Nalbandian, et al, current/past possession is merely a middle hop in the ownership chain. Why not hawk the wares more publicly until now? Sure pushing singles unknowingly through auction houses lets you misrepresent the rarity level (double the quantity) but to be honest demand has been static on that issue forever in the, lets call it 12-15k range for decades. Scarcity was never a problem. Im not convinced there was ever real demand to get a single based on every auction that's offered it I have seen through the years. If someone wanted it, you could readily get it, with the money. I am not sure 100 vs 200 in existence will change the pricing calculus all that much.
Only time will tell.

Now where is the Nixon invert?

400 examples have always been possible.

It is clearly and has always been known that at least one press sheet was made which produces 4 panes of 100 images each including four zip and plate corner blocks.

The question is not how many were found and saved, but how many of the 400 individual stamps remain.

It is not unusual for errors to remain undiscovered for decades. Just look at the US 1978 Owls. The errors were not added to the catalog until 30 years later.

Inventory control is a common business practice and not just in stamps.

"to think these sheets/strips were not initially obtained through deceitful means is naive" & "It is highly doubtful they sold via an over the counter bonafide discovery, or else just folks would have come out with their finds."

and to think deceit was involved is equally cynical. Both are possible. Just more speculation. People often stay silent with finds.

After the Dag Hammarskjold debacle, collectors learned that if they ever discover a major error to simply sit on it for a few years, so it can't end up being made into a separate major Scott #. Granted, waiting 4 decades is probably (PROBABLY?????) overkill, but perhaps it got put away, the finder died, and the heirs didn't know what they had. Anything is speculation, though. Either way. We don't know the story behind it, and any narrative now is simply speculation. What's the point??? I'd like to know the truth as much as anybody. Let's hope it comes out. Maybe it will now, with this 'unveiling'. Perhaps those that know the truth are now dead, and we will never know the details. Too bad, if that's the case!