spoof@ebay.com

The addressee is Imell Razook—not a name you run across every day.

Why anybody would make such a thing is beyond me.

Genuine Kans/Nebr stamps can show 2 gum breaker ridges if they're positioned just right, but most show just one.

Found it! So another 2 or 3 pages to get to the actual place to ask a question – a real improvement as far as I’m concerned

Colin the sarcastic!

revenue-bc-2*… This is the only reference I have for Kans-Nebr overprints. If the stamps are mint, they must show one “gum breaker ridge” to be genuine.

I have just tried to ask the seller if he realizes he has put the wrong title to item 380178516065 but in the new “improved” “Ask a question” I am not allowed to do so – there is no category for it now! Well done Ebay.

Colin the disgusted.

Jeff… Sorry, don’t know much about those instant water heaters, but I think there’s a thermocouple involved, and with heaters and such those are the first element that goes haywire.

I thought you might be interested in this. I mentioned it on the board when you were out of town.

Dana

The fact is perforations get twisted somewhat out of shape when the stamps are separated. So no test can ever be 100% foolproof, even, probably, electron micrograph studies. But this falls wildly outside normal expected deviations. Not only are the holes unevenly spaced, they stray markedly from a straight line and their round edges are generally much more cleanly cut than the perf holes on the other three sides. All of which, to me, spells trouble.

Just my 2¢ though…

Regards, Dana

You have imagined a plot where there isn’t one.

What in the world would I stand to gain, especially when I have made it abundantly clear that I have no interest in changing anyone’s mind on this topic?

I will scan my pink and rose pink next to your “pink”, or furnish my stamps to you for the same purpose. If that doesn’t measure up to “being unwilling to back up [my] opinion with money” I can’t help you.

Amongst bad certs, in my opinion, they are no more numerous than the 64-64a-64b pinks. Therefore yet another cert will not lead anywhere, whereas a side-by-side, unaltered photographic comparison would. Might not change any minds, but another cert, especially with a conclusion at odds with the first, would only throw gas on the fire.

To be frank, if you can’t refrain from being rude (i.e. “blowing wind”, “put up or shut up” etc.) then if there is a discussion that you’re itching to join in, I think it would be best for the discussion’s sake if you kept out of it. You can always convey unhappiness about blowing wind and why-don’t-they-put-up-or-shut-up in private messages.

I know Iomoon knows some Chinese.

Such a direct comparison, to me, should prove far more conclusive than yet another certificate.

The seller whose stamps were pulled was me, jaywild. In fighting this I dealt directly with Frank Sente, who reversed all of the decisions but the one I explained about. It was he who told me that the decision was Mercer Bristow’s—so your characterization of me as “blowing wind” is simply off the mark. I could retort that wind is being blown, and it’s coming from you and not from your mouth, but I’ll leave that for others to conclude.

(Um, that’s a joke Bill.)

Sorry, but I have no interest in buying a stamp that I believe is misidentified. If you wish to prove the point, which you evidently do to the extent of purchasing the stamp with your own money, then please do so. But my declining to enter into a “proving” contest means nothing except perhaps to you. I have better things to do than try to change anybody’s mind about anything.

And please—simple decency, which you frankly do not exhibit very often, requires refraining from telling people you disagree with to “put up or shut up”. Neither do my arguments constitute “word minipulation (sic)”. You can either take them or leave them, and if you feel “manipulated” you can always ignore the discussion to avoid any possible contingent risk.

I have no interest in changing your opinion about that stamp. What I expressed here was my opinion, and then backed it up with my reasoning when it was challenged. Nowhere have I made an appeal for you to join my point of view. I am perfectly comfortable with you believing whatever you want regarding that stamp.

The history of U.S. stamp expertizing has had some pretty sorry episodes over the past forty years. An abundance of laughable certificates have gone out, and anybody who has serious collected U.S. classics is aware of the horror stories. This has been one of them (or two, or three, depending on how you count).

1. Bob Lamb (APS Authorized Signature)
2. J P (?) Savanese (?) (ASDA Authorized Signature—ASDA is American Stamp Dealers Association)
3. Mercer Bristow (Administrator Signature)

My “flip comparison” was done using the row of perfs themselves. If you copy them, flip them around and fit them together again, any irregularity will pop out. If they are uniform and regular (i.e. genuine) they will fit together nicely. See here for an demonstration.

I don’t know what you did to achieve the image you posted. You didn’t use the same perfs. When I do such a test I look for anomalies—I’m not trying to manipulate them in order to hide some weirdness or make it go away. I don’t see the point in that.

I won't argue too strongly that the perfs on the 23 are good (it looks at least partially reperforated to me,) but you definitely showed it in the worst possible light. Another "test" (showing it in the "best" possible light) might leave a different impression -- maybe even different enough that you'd defend the opinion of the experts who examined it...

ps None of the signers of that cert identify themselves as expertizers BTW.

If a scan is not sufficient for me to tell whether a stamp is not a particular color, I would guess that the same scan would not be sufficient for anyone to say that it is that color. So I’m not sure the fidelity of the scan can be introduced to sway this particular discussion one way or the other. Just my 2¢ though. I encourage any and all to make up their own minds, but it won’t stop me from offering my take.

To me, the stamp second from right in the bottom row (here) is similar to the stamp under discussion, and I would not put it amongst the pinks.

While Mercer Bristow may be hardworking, I don’t think his judgment is very sound. First is this, certified by Mercer Bristow for APS as a #23 for a dealer without mention of the obvious reperforation at bottom. (I have an image of the cert, signed by him, but can’t locate the scan at the moment. Shouldn’t be very hard to find at APS however.) When in the course of a board discussion Bristow was shown this certificate a couple years ago and asked if he still thought the perfs were OK across the bottom, he decided to honor the inquiry by terminating the discussion.

A couple years ago, a vocal critic of the APS was auctioning some stamps on eBay, and at Mr. Bristow’s instigation about half were pulled as being fraudulent. (This was back when eBay and APS had their “relationship”.) The seller contacted eBay and was able to prove Mr. Bristow wrong on all but one stamp, on which he would not budge. He adamantly maintained that it had been reperforated at right. The seller withdrew the stamp, sent it in for expertizing and it came back as having been reperforated on the bottom. When this discrepancy was pointed out to Mr. Bristow it is my understanding that he once again terminated all discussion on the topic.

Yep, just my opinion, but I try not to arrive at them frivolously.

Something that is not just my opinion is that APS membership is in decline, and who knows but Mr. Bristow has had something to do with this fact. (Two people I know say they have dropped their membership because of him, but I only have their word on that.) Of course there could be other factors involved, and in this post I am here neither as an advocate for Mr. Bristow nor a detractor, except as it relates to the formation of my own judgment. If either you Bill or you Ken have had nothing but positive experiences then nothing I say should bear upon that.

I can’t make “definitive statements” outside of my capacity to express my opinion. My own personal view is that when I send a stamp in to be expertized I want someone other than Mr. Bristow doing it.

I just do not think the stamp we are discussing is a pink of any type—64, 64a or 64b. I feel safe in asserting that there are many, many bad certs for the pinks out in the world, and that discussions I have participated in indicate that many collectors feel that more than a few came from APS.

As a worldwide collector nothing beats having you own copies to judge various color varities .....paul http://i463.photobucket.com/albums/qq358/stamp12345/colorpink.jpg

For comparison - Siegel Auctions, a top-notch house that does an excellent job photographing their lots, gets images of 64's looking like this and this. And they're one of the best out there! Heck, that eBay lot looks closer to pink than those - are you willing to make a definitive statement about the Siegel lots too? It's a very difficult shade to scan/photograph, so probably best to keep the attack dogs in the pen when you see something like this (with a cert) described as a Scott 64.

As the seller says, this stamp is reused, so the Ohio cancellation doesn’t mean anything. It started its career elsewhere, and we have no way of telling where, so although the pinks are known in Ohio we can’t tie this stamp to Ohio. (You can see the cutout paper around the stamp.) Also, I would suggest that whatever was used to wash the cancel off the stamp contributed to its being lighter than usual.

I would bet money that the stamp is not a “pink”.

BTW my color scans are not “adjusted” or corrected in any way.

As an aside, the true pink shade is very difficult to reproduce, even when you color correct your monitor & scanner... I'll never rule out a 64 or 64a based on the color of a scan, unless it's "way off" (pigeon blood pink is even more difficult to scan accurately. They generally come out looking rose-pink unless you manually color correct.) The scan here is certainly within reason for a pink, so I'm wondering if you see something else here that I'm missing. Taking everything into account, I'd say "very likely" that it's a genuine 64.

Here’s what a good pink looks like, compared to this.

O3

http://i463.photobucket.com/albums/qq358/stamp12345/germany03.jpg