Posted By:
barrysloateI found the link and looked at the slide show. Since I bought and sold stamps on ebay for three years, let me comment on some of this.
Fortunately, I don't recognize the user's buying or selling name, so at least I stayed clear of him. What he did, which of course is illegal, is age old. Reperforating stamps, removing cancels, and even regumming stamps to resemble the original glue, have been done for generations. Many people are not good at it so the repairs are easy to spot; for example, early stamps left the Bureau of Printing and Engraving with a light adhesive on the back, and a poorly regummed stamp will have a heavy and shiny glue to the reverse. Reperforating a stamp, or removing the perforations if the imperforate version is more valuable, has been done forever. The American Philatelic Society will examine stamps and issue a certificate if it is good, and include a picture of the stamp on the certificate. They are also slabbing stamps now, but it hasn't really caught on.
There is a well known American stamp, Scott #39, which is quite scarce unused but a rarity with a cancel. Having a 90 cent face value, it was issued in 1861 and apparently saw very little use as there weren't too many situations where ninety cents was needed. As a result, the stamp is notorious for having fake cancels on it. 95% of the cancelled examples are bad, with these bright red cancels being the ones most often seen.
Buying stamps is really the wild west, and I guess there is going to have to be more done with authenticating services.