Stamps Expertisation: Past and Present

In the past, dealers and experts guaranteed stamps by signing them on the reverse, sometimes by hand and sometimes with a handstamp. 

This method had a number of disadvantages.

 First, it was unclear what the signature was meant to claim. 

Second, it was open to abuse: you could get an expert to sign a relatively common stamp and then you could later add a rare overprint and point to the signature as a guarantee. To try to stop this abuse, experts sometimes signed twice when given an overprinted stamp - once for the stamp, once for the overprint. 

Third, handstamp ink often penetrated to the front of the stamp, causing an immediate reduction in value. 

Fourth, over time collectors forgot who the experts were especially when they signed with initials or a symbol. 

Fifth, when someone got it wrong, the mark on the back either had to be crossed out or otherwise commented upon. I have several stamps in my stock where an expert has written FAKE or FORGERY or FALSCH and has later changed their mind and crossed it out and signed again. These stamps are not saleable.

Modern photographic, scanning and computer print technology allows a much better way of doing things. At no great cost, an expert can now link a stamp to a printed document and not sign the stamp at all. This is now standard procedure for most experts, including anyone who is a Verbandspruefer of the German Bund Philatelisticher Pruefer e. V. Here’s an example. 

Note how both the back and front of the stamp are photographed, in high resolution, and how the “Attest” format allows for comment and explanation. Even twenty years ago, to produce a document to this standard would have been quite expensive; nowadays, a desktop computer and scanner are all that is needed apart from the security-printed “Attest” formular.

Click on Images to Magnify

The Basic Rule of Stamp and Postal History Conservation

Today I was breaking up a collection of Latvian stamps and a collection of pre-philatelic Gibraltar covers. This rather depressing task reminded me of the one basic rule of Conservation:

Aim to pass on your stock or your collection to the next owner in as good a condition as you received it

This rule says nothing about cleaning or repairing; that’s a separate topic. But the rule can be converted to some simple tips, some handy hints, about how to treat stamps and covers.

STAMPS

  Do not put hinges on mint stamps or used stamps

  Always use tweezers to handle stamps

  Store albums and stockbooks upright; don’t lay them flat

  A slip-case helps keep out dust and sunlight. If it doesn’t have a slipcase, then don’t use the top row of a stockbook.

  If you are going to divide a block of imperforate stamps, use a cutting knife and a metal ruler – don’t use scissors

  No damp storage, please!

COVERS

  Do not write on them, in pencil or ink. Ever. Your scribbles do not add value with the one exception of Agathon Faberge's and then not even all of his. Expect a discount from any dealer who prices by writing on their stock. Do not ask any Expert to sign your cover. Ever. Look what has happened to classic Italian covers.

  Do not use photographic mounting corners. About one in ten will find a way to stick to your cover and when someone removes it from your mounts, the cover will tear.
  Do not use sellotape for any purpose or metal staples (yes, today I was handling a collection full of metal staples)
 Do not trim roughly opened covers, open them up “for display”, or re-fold them. Keep the cover in the state you received it.
Store albums upright and out of sunlight. Don’t lay them flat. Use slipcases.

  Think twice about using black backing to enhance the appearance of your cover; cheap black paper is often acidic

   No damp storage, please!

Well, that’s not a long list. Maybe ten percent of dealers and collectors follow something like those simple rules, which is why so much philatelic material is now damaged beyond repair.

I feel sorry for collectors in Italy...

One of the nice things about collecting is that you can decide to collect anything you like and you alone make up the rules which say what is inside and outside your collecting field. But I am afraid I do expect collectors - and dealers - to understand something about collectible objects.

Those objects start their histories outside of our collections and when they arrive in our collections, one of our responsibilities is to conserve them in the best state we can, so that they endure and can pass on to others. In this, our collection - however modest - is like a museum collection. It is a small part of a heritage - sometimes our own, sometimes somebody else's - and we should look after it.

This is better understood now in stamp collecting and postal history than it once was. Most collectors no longer put hinges on anything, stamps or postal history items, and they no longer write on them as if they were scrap paper. Dealers still scribble prices on covers and cards and they need to be told not to. Some damage - however minor - is always caused when those prices are rubbed out by a collector or the next dealer along.

Because these things have only been understood in the recent past, we inherit a great deal of vandalised material. Different philatelic cultures have different traditions, some worse than others. Italy is home to one of the worst philatelic cultures from the point of view of understanding and valuing the collectible object and I feel sorry for collectors there who have to live with the legacy of their past.

I still get sent Italian auction catalogues but I rarely look at them - it is so depressing - and I don't bid. Today I glanced at a new Bolaffi catalogue which arrived in the post and my eye was caught by a Romanian cover:

Click on Image to Enlarge

Well, there is a very beautiful 54 Parale Bull's Head - just look at the margins! But then look at the cover. Autographs and handstamps and annotations all over it. Just count them up! Worse, they have changed since the photograph was taken which appears in Dr Heimbuechler's Bull's Heads of Moldavia:

Click on Image to Magnify

Compare them carefully: some new graffiti have appeared and some old ones have been removed. The latter is a warning: where the old graffiti have been removed, there will be surface damage to the letter.

The letter is estimated at 7500 euro. I am always on the look out for Bull's Heads but I won't be bidding. There is too  much unattractive damage here to what was once - a very long time ago - a very desirable collectible object. Unfortunately, it fell into the hands of people who I don't think understood that.

Never Let Anyone Sign Your Covers!

I am looking at a photograph in the Private Treaty section of an upcoming Bolaffi sale. It shows an 1858 cover with a bisected Romagna stamp catalogued at a cool quarter of a million euros. The bisected stamp is surrounded by SIX pencilled autographs and one handstamped signature. Bottom right of the cover there is a further pencilled autograph. The catalogue lists them all: Giulio Bolaffi, A.G.Bolaffi, Emilio, Alberto and Enzo Diena, Mauritio Raybaudi and Renato Mondolfo.

I am asking myself, By how much do these signatures and the handstamp reduce the value of this item?

Consider:

(1) If you try to rub out these signatures, you not only cause surface scuffing but risk creasing the item - something all dealers have done (and often do) when they rub out one pencilled price to replace it with their own

(2) You can't rub out a handstamp. If someone makes a mistake with a handstamp, it has to be crossed through in ink and a correcting note added - I have seen this often enough on the backs of stamps. Who wants a stamp or a cover which is a visible record of someone's mistakes?

(3) It can never be clear what a signature is signing. It is always ambiguous. That is why a Certficate is necessary to clarify what has been signed. But if you have the Certificate with a photograph attached, you do not need the pencilled signature or the handstamp: it's redundant

(4) A cover can be altered after it has been signed - something added or taken away to "improve" it. In that sense, the signature is strictly worthless and potentially misleading. In contrast, it's a lot more difficult to amend a Certificate. Of course, you can fake it outright - but that is generally a lot more difficult than forging a signature or even faking a less valuable (but signed) into a more valuable (but still signed) cover

(5) The cover is supposed to be a collectible object and to be preserved in the best state possible. Signatures deface the object. No one would hand the Mona Lisa over to a bunch of experts and invite them to decorate it (in felt tip?) with their signatures to "prove" its authenticity.

Conclusion? I reckon a cover decorated with signatures is worth about a quarter to a half less than a cover without them - and as part of an Exhibit, it ought to lose points in a similar proportion.

Am I wrong?