Advice Sought On Expertizing Matter

Thank you for taking this question. About 20 years ago I purchased a rare stamp, Scott 112b, the one cent no grill from 1869. It was accompanied by a 1992 APS cert " Scott 112b unused, disturbed OG, genuine." I have always believed that in expertizing you are talking about the quality of the expertizers, not the organization per se. I contacted the APS and was told the specific expertizers on this stamp were Stanley Piller and Richard Champagne. Now 20 years later, a purchaser at auction submits it to the PF who determines it to be Scott 123 with redistributed OG. Obviously, that is a major change. I contacted Larry Lyons at the PF who signed the certificate and asked him to provide the identity of the actual expertizer and was turned down flat. Everything I have read about Piller, who wrote an article on distinguishing no grill pictorials and Champagne tells me that they would have been qualified to make that call and in fact there would be every reason in the world for them to be very conservative in doing so—but they made it anyway.

I'm not trying to sell this stamp anymore but seems to me it either is or is not the rare no grill. Everything I see from APS has been open and above board.
How would you handle this if the stamp were yours?

Not sure that you have much recourse. As esteemed and competent as Stanley and Richard were at the time they did not have the latest technology available to them that is used as standard practice now for just such a stamp. The technology is why I think the opinion changed. I would insist on seeing the PF examination notes even if they redact the examiner(s) name(s). I certainly don't agree with hiding the examiner(s) but short of a legal battle what can you really do about it. It has long been argued that the notes should be included with all opinions since you paid for the work. I would not accept a home inspection that said nothing but "Passed" or "Failed". Ridiculous.

Not interested in a "legal battle." Not sure what technology exists today that would clarify the distinction. The few articles that I have read on the subject made mention of characteristics such as the location of the image and vertical or horizontal weave of the paper for which " advanced technology did not appear to play a part.

I am more impressed here by the secretiveness of the PF and the motivation for Piller and Champagne to call it anything other than what they truly believed it to be. Logic suggests that common is common and that an item like this would be assumed to be the more common variety unless it proved itself to be the rarer type. If Piller and Champagne were incompetent—which they were not—I could understand the PF starting with the assumption that they were wrong and try to assemble evidence to support that conclusion. In this case, since they were competent, it would seem that there should be incontrovertible evidence to overturn and that evidence should appear on the cert since it was submitted as a 112b.

Lyons lack of transparency is disappointing but not unprecedented for the PF in my experience. Many years ago I submitted a Scott 67 to the PF. It looked unused but came back with an opinion from the PF that reported cancellation removed. I called the PF and spoke to the individual who claimed that he was the expertizer on the stamp. When I asked him where on the stamp the removed cancellation had been he said "hold on a minute while I check the worksheet." He then returned and said to me words that I will forever remember: "the worksheet is blank."

The VSC600 is what I am talking about. The PF has one and the APS did not twenty years ago. It changes everything. Many opinions have been changed because off the technology.

Read a bit about it here:

http://www.hamiltonphilatelic.org/p...mpressed.pdf

Rodgcam : thank you for the additional information which was reviewed. Certainly one can be impressed with the technology afforded by machines such as the VSC 6000 and the Brubaker spectrometer but I am not sure either of these, which seem to be most useful for detecting fraudulent items, faults or alterations applies to distinguishing a genuine no grill stamp as being either 112b vs 123.

In addition, Robert Odenweller in his Philatelist article on the same subject from 1979 refers to both the curl test as well as determination of the paper's "mesh" direction as a means of distinguishing the original from the re-issue——-well before the introduction of any of these new technologies, whatever their usefulness and well within the time frame of both Piller and Champagne.

If my stamp certified by the APS in 2000 was overturned by the PF for as yet unstated reasons, what does that say about all the previous 112b's that have been certified as such? Are they also 123's?

More to the point, if these technologies are so vital for stamp ID, why are not PSE, PSAG, and APS using them? I don't believe for a moment that they care less about getting it right than the PF.

It may be a thorny problem to get the PF to respond to your inquiries, since it sounds like you were not the person who submitted the item to them for an opinion. Moreover, the potential buyer who did submit it, may not want to push for more explanation from them, since the item now has a cloud over it. This might be one of those times when YOU should submit it to PSE for one more opinion (call it the tie breaker).

Given the potential value of the stamp, it may be financially justified to resubmit it to the PF as suggested above and, if the opinion still comes back as 123, resubmit it to APS to see what their current expertizers think. It would be an intriguing situation if the PF says no to 112b and the APS reconfirms their original opinion. Is anyone aware of such a difference of opinion with two major expertizing firms on a stamp as or more valuable than the one in question here?

Essays: a very reasonable suggestion which has occurred to me with the only thought being that an eventual purchaser might, or likely would, resubmit the item to the PF, for the same reason the other guy did when it already had a clean APS cert. then what would have been accomplished?

It would shock me if any of the Big 3 would reverse their own opinion, if only on the basis of ego.

If technology has improved as stated then resubmit to the APEX and see if they change their opinion. If they do they will say why. If they don't you at least have access to the new notes.

Some auction firms don't accept returns when a PFC is more recent than 5 years (or whatever the criteria is).

So if you get a new, good PFC, then consign it right away accordingly.

I should add one additional piece of information that seems relevant. A respected dealer, aware of the circumstances as well as the competency of Piller and Champagne offered the opinion that at the PF, only Lewis Kauffman would be of sufficient knowledge and stature to surmount the APS opinion. This suggestion was persued and it turns out that Kauffman was not involved in the PF evaluation.

Getting more opinions that also have no back-up notes is just wasted money IMO. How can you have any level of confidence that one or the other is "right".

It isn't surprising that ultra-magnification with different types of lighting would now show for example a pressed-out grill. This shouldn't be subjective at all. As hard and soft tech evolves we should expect more changes to older opinions.

The core of this matter is the lack of transparency. Why not include examination notes as when you receive imaging results for your knee. In fact, why not include the images. In 2025 we should expect no less.

I do know that the impression of a 112b is going to be different from the impression of a 123, which were printed from a new plate. Also the shade will be different as well. And as an aside, the VSC6000 can examine paper fibers clearly as well, which can include the mesh of the paper. I am sure that direct comparisons must have been made as well.

It should also be noted that the original cert was done by two dealers. As knowledgeable as they both were (and I knew both), they may or may not have had a financial involvement in it, or knew who did. The current opinion was almost certainly not done by dealers, but by other knowledgeable people with no financial incentive of any kind.

Rev: with all due respect, you are offering speculation only and at the same time smearing the reputation of people who can't defend themselves. It is illogical to think that Piller and Champagne did not know the characteristics of the 1869 vs 1875's. As Rodgcam says, it's a matter of lack of transparency and injury to my property without explanation or anyone accepting responsibility.