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Posted By: davidcycleback

Duly note, you can determine whether or not the ink soaked that deep, by removing a similarly deep portion of paper from an undamaged area of the stamp. If the ink had penetrated has deep in that area, that would show the ink had genuinely soaked that deep. This wouldn't definitively prove it an understamp, but would support the deep soak theory. If the ink tone is consistent with the same depth at the currently exposed scrape area, that would be consistent with a stamp placed before the scrape damage. If ink has not soaked that deep in the currently undamaged area, this would pretty much prove it's a later stamp (put on after the scrapbook removal or whatever caused the scrape). As the card is a low grade common and already has damage in the stamping area, further removal would not be a significant problem conditionally.