Old Put Question...

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Posted By: Mike Williams 

The "Old Put" E98 Clarke in the latest Sloate auction is the first blue background I've seen. I assumed only the red background carried the stamp. Has anyone seen a blue before (or other colors for that matter)?

Take care all!

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Posted By: leon

I've only seen 4-5 Old Puts and the auction one is the first, that I can remember, with other than a red front. Just by the nature of other overprints I would think they could be found in other colors albeit less often (obviously). And a predictable scan...hope to see ya at the National again....thinking early ......later

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Posted By: TBob

I have also never even seen one which wasn't red. In fact, to my knowledge, no one in the hobby has ever mentioned seeing one which wasn't red. Makes you want to go, "hmmmmmm....."

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Posted By: Botn

I have seen about 5 different ones and they have always been red. It would make sense that they could come in other colors but the person to ask would be Lew.



Greg

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Posted By: jay behrens

David might know better then me, but overprints like this scare the bejeebez out of me. It seems way too easy fake the stamp and then find someone that knows something about inks to get an ink that matches that era.

Jay

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Posted By: Hankron

If forgery of these stamps is not a problem but the collector worries that it may become one in the future, he can document the stamp's authenticy for posterity by establish the date he bought it or owned it or even digging back further into its history (was auctioned in 1999 by Lew Lipset). Getting an Old Put graded or printing out the eBay sales page would be examples of good documenting.

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Posted By: Hankron

Establishing yourself as an honest, trustworthy and reliable person and seller will only and always help. If in two years there was a burst of faked stamps, and Leon or Adam or Scott or Julie or many others said he or she bought the Old Put ten years ago, I would beleive it.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Leon and company is not who I am worried about. Woth these overprints so hot right now, the people I am worried about are the bandwagon collector that are in over their head on these overprints, and duping them into buying fake overprints would not be very hard since the desire to own at least type card is high on their list.

If I was an owner of any of these overprints, I'd be doing everything I could to document the provinance of the card in case fakes start flooding the market. A good scan of the overprint is a good start as most seem to be light in ink in various areas making each overprint unique.

Jay

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Posted By: runscott

Whoever sold "Old Put" probably asked for a certain number of cards to be printed and sent to them. The easiest thing would have been to print the necessary number of sheets, cut the cards and mail them. I would think that all the cards on any particular sheet would have the same color background - wouldn't that make the most sense in terms of setting up the presses? Perhaps they ordered a number of cards that required 10 sheets and the first 9 were red background?

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Posted By: barry sloate

I am less familiar with Old Put overprints than the board members are (I think this is only the second one I've handled) and had no idea a blue background is such an anomaly. Anyone who wins it or who is at least thinking of bidding on it can send it in to one of the respected grading services and I will hold the money in escrow until the results are in. Please just mention this to me if you plan to be a serious bidder and it will be no problem. I believe the overprint is fine and wouldn't have taken it otherwise; the other card I have, the E92 overprint of McGraw, certainly looks more questionable to me as I have never seen it before, but I do state that in the text. I never want to sell a bad item and will defer to other expert opinions if there is genuine concern.

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Posted By: Hankron

Neither I or Jay were really commenting about your Old Put (I just glaced at yours and I'm largely ignorant about the variation and its value). It's just that, at the chat room, Jay and I concurred that, if the premiums on this overprint zoom, someone may be tempted to make their own overprints.

Under the catogory of 'Easier Said Than Done', I don't think it would be a snap to make an identical rubber stamp. What current Old Put owners can do is to take very high quality scans of the overprint. With the availability of several of these scans any future fake stamps would most likely be weeded out.

So as innoculation to any potential problems, the current owner can simply document the card's history (including if that merely means saving the receipt from last Tuesday) and take a real good scan of the overprint. This will help to protect both his investment and the hobby in general ... Naturally documenting the provenance relates to other rubberstamp overprints as well, especially unusual ones.

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Posted By: Hankron

In fact, it dawned on me just after I posted the last message, that a faked overprint would be less likely to duplicate a known one but be a new kind ... Illustrating why documenting provenance is not a bad thing to do, and how significant documentation ('Came from Lew Lipset's 30 year old collection. Card comes with my receipt and a photocopy of his auction page') may actually add significant value to the card some day.

Duly note note that, a large portion of what I do is not just thinking about what and how things have been forged but what and how things have yet to be forged. This type of paranoia and sepculation is normal, and no one should be unduly alarmed.

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Posted By: Mike Williams

For the record, I was not questioning the validity of the Clarke backstamp...I just never saw a blue background "Old Put" before.

Good luck with the auction!

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Posted By: jay behrens

personally, if I am gonna fake fake an oveprint, I'm gonna fake a known one. The Old Put font is very plain and easy to duplicate. The blumme's might be harder, but a good stamp maker should be able to duplicate it. Trying to pass off an uncatalogued overprint might be tougher, although you could certainly suck a lot of the gullable.

Jay