I *really* Hate The Way PSE Words Their Certificates!

Not a new complaint, but I cringe any time I see a PSE cert (well... even beyond the normal cringing due to their questionable determinations) that is a negative opinion, because they word their opinions in the most bizarre manner, likely the least clear manner possible.

Look at the image below from ebay. It is a stamp that was submitted as an R36a, but is actually an R36c with the perfs trimmed off.

But instead of listing it as an R36a as submitted, with the opinion that it is NOT genuine, PSE instead flips the script, listing it as an R36c with a determination that begins "It is genuine used..."

No! That's not how any of this should work. At all... It muddies the waters unnecessarily.

A cert should clearly state what an item is or is not, as related to how it was submitted, and if the item is faked or altered, the phrase "it is genuine" should not appear ANYWHERE on the cert!

This last bit is important, as the way the cert below is worded, a little ingenuity could change the c in R36c to an a, and then all you have to do is remove the ", with the perforations TRIMMED off" and you instantly have a good cert, as nothing else needs to be changed! (Yes, cross referencing the physical cert with the online database would immediately reveal the tampering, but I question how many people check vs. the online databases in the heat of the moment prior to purchase.)

Additionally, I much prefer the Philatelic Foundations approach of boldly watermarking certs that have a negative opinion so they can be easily diffeentiated at a glance from good certs (see second image below).

Just another reason why I will never send anything to PSE, even beyond the fact that many of their determinations on U.S. revenues have been unreliable garbage for the last decade.

Sheesh...

Dan,
Aside from the good practical points you make, I also would add that from a database standpoint there is room for great improvement with ALL certifications. Apparently, none of the certifying organization ever considered how to design a certification using fields that would be useful when searching/retrieving data from a database.

In this example, there should be a 'Submitted As' field and a 'Found To Be' field (or whatever names they chose). The point being storing these two important pieces of info in two separate fields. This would have made it child's play to be able to search and cross reference both fields to generate great new data. (i.e. 'How many stamps submitted as ABC were actually XYZ. or simply looking up all certs which turned out to not be 'as submitted'.)

And in an even bigger oversight, none of the certifying organization ever considered having a certification revision field. Being able to find and retrieve pervious certifications would be HUGE. Even internally I have to believe that the first step they do when receiving a new patient is to look and see if they have done it before. I assume they start with the catalog number and look through them trying to match the stamp? Over the years, I wonder how many man-hours have been spent looking up old certs for them.

In fact and in my mind, this would also be a great profit center and marketing tool for them. In other words, offer a reduced rate for a re-cert. let hobbyists know that all certs have a relatively short 'shelf life' and that getting a re-cert is important after X amount of years. <shrugs>
Don

Given the antiquated nature of some of these organizations (heck, the PF still doesn't accept electronic payments of any kind), it doesn't surprise me that the more technical aspects of databases and their possibilities eludes them.

Any item on the PF site which has more than one cert has them listed along with the latest cert. On the left side of the screen. And I suspect that the reason more changes to those sites do not occur has to do with who actually owns the programs.

Hi Bart,
Do you know how they find the related certs and show them together?

With a typically 'revision' implementation, the revision field would be immediately behind the original certification number. For example, #0592773-1, #0592773-2, #0592773-3, etc.. Doing it this way has a significant number of virtues such as being able to simply add the revision field to an existing DB without messing with the original data.
Don

All my experience with certification is with the German BPP, so please excuse the rookie question, but why is there a "Submitted As" at all? Why not just send the stamp in, providing no additional information to the examiner, and have an opinion rendered as to identity, condition, etc.?

Seems to me that submitting an item as a particular ID is introducing not only confusion as to the language used in the result, but potentially impacting the result as well.

The submitter is the person who wants clarification about the stamp in question. It must be entered into the system and scanned BEFORE all the experts see it. And no one knows everything in any case, so it would be impossible to make a judgement about what the stamp is in some cases. It really is impractical to do it any other way then by the submitter catalog number (assuming that they know or think they know, which cannot possibly always be true).

Most of the time the item is sent in with that information included.

It would be very simple to assign each submission with a unique internal "patient xxxxx" number which would not be a part of any final reporting.

I get why they might want a submitted as fir internal use, but there is absolutely no reason a cert should say what it was submitted as. That is irrelevant. All that matters is what it was found to be.

Disagree.

They do get a number, it's the cert number. And they get the catalog number as well. If I was sending something in, I would hate not having the cat number that I sent it in as. I prefer how the PF certs are currently worded.

Oh wait, I forgot, there is no point debating the PF with you since they are perfect. Sorry, my fault.

So if I'm understanding the issue correctly, it really comes down to this -- what question are you expecting the examiner to answer?

In a non-"Submitted as" system, the question is "what is this?".

In a "Submitted as" system, the question is "is this what I think it is?".

There is no point debating the PF with you either, since you hate them because they won't change to the way you have decided they must act.

That is correct, and I have never understood why people have so much anger and/or difficulty with this. It is clear and plain.