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I believe you have your own website for this cover? Post it there (assuming it's in some normally readable format such as PDF, RTF, or Word doc file), and link to it from here. Simple. This report has been waved around on this thread like a talisman, let's see what the thing actually says and maybe discuss this on the basis of some additional facts.Abed H Najjar wrote:I feel it is time to put the Radley report out for you all to look at. It is quite long and I will have to seek advise from the administrators of this site as to the best way to present it to you.
Yes, especially at the bottom of the 7. I've noticed it in some other images too. I was going to look at my copies (of other plates!) to see if I could see the same thing on them.capetriangle wrote: One point to consider, however, in Glen Stephens' second post, his photo labeled "This is one of 6 UNDOUBTED number '77's' from Abed's cover," the second "7" shows, in my opinion, the yellowish rose-red coloration, the subject of so much dispute.
Does anyone else see it?
This thread has been very interesting and informative to read, and I come back every few days to read the latest updates. From the closeup images posted, and the mass of scientific evidence provided, I would be inclined to believe the item genuine. It's certainly making quite a tale, the origins, the discovery et al.GlenStephens wrote: I'd suggest if this matter were subject to a Court Of Law and a Judge to decide, on the overwhelming balance of scientific evidence, and with ZERO refutation scientific evidence offered by the defence, the cover would be deemed 100% genuine in accordance with the clear scientific evidence supporting it.
I'm trying to follow this but the first image isn't appearing - all I see is the microscrope! I think the space between 1d and Plate77 in the URL is killing it for me - or maybe it's the plethora of dots - close.up.blowup.jpgGlenStephens wrote:This is one of 6 UNDOUBTED number '77's' from Abed's cover.
Radley (below) states there are similar patches all over the stamps. Blow up any area on the stamps and you will likely see it.flip138 wrote:To me the border patterns between the 2 and 4 of the postmark and the area above the ENN of penny look just as yellowed as the area of the second 7 of the left-hand 77.
So can we get this straight please?capetriangle wrote:Dear All
I am currently struggling with the Radley report. I am having a problem e-mailing it and hence printing it out. So I therefore still have no opinion.
Well you may not like accepting it, but you are going to get it.capetriangle wrote:Glen
I will accept no criticism from you regarding the fact that I spent less than one minute with the Radley report last week.
capetriangle wrote:
At The Collectors Club meeting in New York on September 16, 2009 Mr. Najjar placed on display in front of the frames on the right-hand wall actually two reports. The one I referred to in my post was from a handwriting authority.
.... I cannot remember, to save my life, the name of the author. The report was, I believe, spiral-bound and about a quarter of an inch thick.
Other than noticing the identities of the two Expert Committees involved, I spent very little time with the report
(Red emphasis mine.)capetriangle wrote:
I have referred to Mr. Robert Radley as a "handwriting authority." (check the posts) I have no opinion on his work, report or qualifications. I have held his report in my hands for under a minute. I have, for the most part, noticed only the facts reported in previous posts.
The clear science from a myriad of reports and experts shows that view to be manifestly wrong, and in my view all your obfuscation about a yellow tinge to one 7 etc (that no-one except you sees in all the reports!) is the classic red herring diversion argument.
https://www.glenstephens.com/snaugust09.html
I wrote the prevailing opinion quoted by Mr. Najjar as Expert Opinion "B" and was responsible for the information conveyed to him in the subsequent correspondence. I was aware of the information contained in Expert Opinion "A" prior to writing mine.
I am completely happy with the opinion and am willing to put at stake my thirty-two-year professional reputation upon it.
Seeing your reputation is at stake (your own words) is your reputation worth a few $1000, in order for you to commission your own independent report from another Professor of Analytical Chemistry? To offer some SCIENCE to support your view?
GlenStephens wrote:
Seeing your reputation is at stake (your own words) is your reputation worth a few $1000, in order for you to commission your own independent report from another Professor of Analytical Chemistry? To offer some SCIENCE to support your view?
This does not surprise me one bit, and speaks volumes to many I am sure, of the validity and accuracy of your views. Many folks would feel their professional reputations are worth more than a dime.capetriangle wrote:
Glen
And to answer your quoted question, I will not spend a dime of my own money commissioning my own scientific report on the item.
capetriangle wrote:
I am a former 15-year employee (expert) at The Philatelic Foundation and have been a consultant to them since 1979.
I would be interested to know a little more about these elements and there possible "use" ? Whilst still happy to take this cover as genuine on the facts so far presented, would not any attempt to alter such a stamp or area of it best be attempted with contemporary materials."The elements Ba, Cr, and P were found only in the diamond area surrounding the second "7" in plate number "77" and were not homogenous and not part of the ink formulation."
Yes, that example has crossed my mind a few times during this discussion.Tas Philatelist wrote:All sides should keep an open mind concerning new discoveries until a full scientific examination is done. It can be embarrassing when a new discovery turns out to be fake: http://www.glenstephens.com/linnsMarch8-99.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The two strangest certificates I've ever seen (from legitimate bodies) were from The Philatelic Foundation. One was a post fiscal from Victoria that was certified to be from the Victorian era -- it gave the Scott number. But the perforations showed that the stamp was from a much later issue with the same design. They had completely misidentified the stamp.capetriangle wrote: As far as the clients of The Philatelic Foundation is concerned I firmly believe that virtually all of them are happy with the opinions expressed on their certificates. For those who are not there is a reconsideration process in place.
Just as an addendum -- if that's the one that gives the plates and was shown in your articles, it doesn't necessarily follow that no sheets were ever physically printed from it, just that there was no official record of sheets printed in production because there wasn't any production run.Abed H Najjar wrote:I have already provided details of an official document IR79/79 that states that plate 77 was never put to press and no sheets were printed from it.
#47 seems crystal clear to me.capetriangle wrote:
(47) I just do not understand this paragraph.
Richard, it certainly would - perhaps he could be commissioned to carry out a similar examination on a "known" finely repaired stamp, and the results should be made publiccapetriangle wrote:(19 - 22) It would be fascinating to me to see how Mr. Radley would fare with the finest repair work done on Hawaiian Missionary stamps.
Oh, I don't know. You do one stamp. If you screw up, you find another cover and try again with the lessons learned. If you feel confident, you do the next stamp. At any time after the first, if you screw up so badly that it's irretrievable, you have the options of removing the successful forgeries and calling it stamp(s) on piece, or you could (for example) abrade away the screwed-up bit and leave only the bits that worked. Although in the latter case, clearly no-one would believe it wasn't faked if one of the stamps was damaged like that. Oh hang on ... If you do more than one, you create a presumption of innocence and can relax in the knowledge that people will point out how no forger could possibly be foolish enough to do more than the bare minimum necessary and therefore it must be genuine. Damn, how dastardly!GlenStephens wrote:And of course again why NO forger (except your clever dastardly man of course) would ever have picked a cover with THREE stamps to work on. Absurd.
Rudimentary eh? Wow, that's a strong word. I may be wrong, but I seem to recall a minor bombshell discovery a while back that suggested that flaws on certain WWII Colonial higher values may have been hand retouched by the printers by painting in the missing bits (to avoid expensive reprinting with scarce materials). That might merely have been a cute cover story for fakery, of course, but there was apparently some provenance to the items in question, and they'd certainly been inspected. Also, we know that there actually are people able to do ultra-fine detail work. You couldn't do it, I couldn't do it, but hey, someone had to engrave the damn stamp dies in the first place ...GlenStephens wrote:Try painting on a porous stamp with red ink, with a tiny 1 hair camel brush and sees how much it runs down the paper fibres. Impossible to do it 5 times in a 2mm x 2mm square and get away with it leaving no evidence that rudimentary inspection would not detect.
Don't know about you, but my first thought if I planned to have a go at this (given that you don't just need old recipe ink, you need ink that looks and tests old when dried) would be to scrape some from another stamp of the same issue, find a basically inert organic solvent that softened the bits just enough to work with and evaporated in a reasonable amount of time, and make up a mixture out of that. It's not like you need gallons of the stuff. Even better, take the ink from another stamp from the same sheet, say one from the same cover. Although in the latter case, clearly no-one would believe it wasn't faked if one of the stamps was damaged like that. Oh hang on ...GlenStephens wrote:And I repeat for the umpteenth time, your forger needed to find 150 year red ink to do all this magic - with the EXACT physical and chemical characteristics to what the PO used.
Pretty good actually it's a comic strip (sorry, couldn't resist, h/t Doonesbury). They wouldn't be random copies -- they'd have to have been copies that came from sheets given to a senior official for checking, kept around for (e.g.) testing purposes and subsequently 'leaked'. Not exactly unknown, there seems to be a ton of GB QV archive material on the market. Clearly two and possibly all three of the mint copies came from the same block?Abed H Najjar wrote: What are the odds of finding these copies amongst the 13.5billion copies printed.
What really would be useful to see -- I seem to remember asking for this on about page 6 or 7, but I guess no-one had the stamps? -- are the accepted second states of these letterings for plate 73, which would presumably actually be the third states. That way a comparison could be made looking for characteristics that matched them and the stamps on cover but not the first states, which if found would be a significant bit of evidence.Abed H Najjar wrote: Matching the corner letters may give some answers and I am also looking into that.
Hmm. The Abnormals might be a comparison here -- I can't recall the exact figures, but I believe the numbers of used copies of the various types known (where recorded used) range from about three to seventeen. They would have come from trial sheets. There are, what, five recorded used 77s? So it's not beyond the bounds of possibility, especially as some have been missing for ages and therefore might have been misidentified. (Or indeed, from plate 73.)Abed H Najjar wrote:I am talking about the used copies that exist and which have been found within the public domain. The odds on these coming from the trials I do feel is astronomical, but anything is possible.
mozzerb - at first I thought this was meant to be humorous but on re-reading it, I really do believe you were serious.mozzerb wrote:
Don't know about you, but my first thought if I planned to have a go at this (given that you don't just need old recipe ink, you need ink that looks and tests old when dried) would be to scrape some from another stamp of the same issue, find a basically inert organic solvent that softened the bits just enough to work with and evaporated in a reasonable amount of time, and make up a mixture out of that. It's not like you need gallons of the stuff.GlenStephens wrote:And I repeat for the umpteenth time, your forger needed to find 150 year red ink to do all this magic - with the EXACT physical and chemical characteristics to what the PO used.
Even better, take the ink from another stamp from the same sheet, say one from the same cover. Although in the latter case, clearly no-one would believe it wasn't faked if one of the stamps was damaged like that.
Ah well. They always do say the English sense of humour is wasted on the rude colonials, who can't tell the difference between what is and what isn't.GlenStephens wrote:mozzerb - at first I thought this was meant to be humorous but on re-reading it, I really do believe you were serious.![]()
Wait up there Sherlock.mozzerb wrote:
I can't recall the exact figures, but I believe the numbers of used copies of the various types known (where recorded used) range from about three to seventeen. They would have come from trial sheets.
From an earlier post. . the "RK" existing is of course speculative, (but would be likely at least) and it would be better if Barry removed it!admin wrote:Re the Mint 1d Plate 77s I found this interesting first hand account from Tom Allen, who bought a great deal of material for the Royal Collection, and was asked to be Keeper Of The Royal Collection (by Wilson) when Wilson retired.
He was one of the few dealers ever invited to join the RPS London, and was on their Expert Comitteee for over 20 years, 1954-1975.
Wonder what his "Secret Test" for Plate 77 was?
Because that's the way the sources say the process worked at De La Rue, as indeed has been referred to numerous times already in this thread. A similar sort of process seems to have been in operation at Perkins, Bacon by the look of it.GlenStephens wrote:Wait up there Sherlock.mozzerb wrote:
I can't recall the exact figures, but I believe the numbers of used copies of the various types known (where recorded used) range from about three to seventeen. They would have come from trial sheets.![]()
"They would have come from trial sheets?" Why So?
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