U.S. #491 Used F-VF with WT Crowe Certificate #21321

Item Specifics

Country

United States

Catalog Number

491

Stamp Type

General Issue

Condition

Used

Centering

F/VF

Stamp Format

Single

Year of Issue

1916

Item Description

Condition: Used, certified, F-VF

Grade: F/VF (Fine/Very Fine)
This is a stamp missing from the vast majority of U.S. collections. U.S. #491 used fine-very fine condition with all perfs present and intact. Four clean margins and lightly machine cancelled. Cert mentions a tiny corner crease at top right, which I am unable to see. There are a lot of U.S. stamps that should never be purchased without a certificate of authenticity and high on that list is #491. First, there are fakes out there (see photo 4 from the PF archives for one documented example). Second, #491 is a very scarce stamp. Over the last 13 years, PSE has only certified 112 #491's as genuine (71 used and 41 mint). By contrast, they have certified 294 #454's and 189 #453 as genuine, many of which were submitted as #491 (see images 5 - 8 for a sampling of PF certs for stamps that were submitted as #491 but turned out to be various other catalog numbers). The watermarks on these old coils can be terribly elusive and require the trained eye of a true expert to certify. Many sellers also get tripped up on the design type (see photo 8). #491 is type II which means there is only one shading line in the fold at far left and in the next-to-last fold at the far right of the ribbon (see photo 9 for detailed image). Experienced sellers even have trouble with this; listing 126256707340 (photo 10) is one such example as you can clearly see two shading lines in the ribbon making it type III, not type II. (To the seller's credit, they removed the listing when I pointed out the error.) Always do your own due diligence and check to make sure the stamp you are bidding on has the correct design type. For example, listing 266348595246 appears to be type III (two shading lines instead of one). If the listing photos aren't clear enough to tell, just ask the seller to post a better image. If they refuse, then move on. You also have to contend with sellers who probably shouldn't be selling stamps in the first place. One obvious example is item 265845519897, which is clearly a pair of #599 (seller has been informed of the error but seems unconvinced or unconcerned). Uncertified #491's are simply space-fillers. This one has been examined by William T. Crowe and declared genuine (see photo 3). For those of you not familiar with William T. "Bill" Crowe, I have included his bio as photo #11. He's the real deal and there's a good chance that you already have certificates of your own with his signature on them as he's signed off on hundreds of thousands of certs for the PF and PSE over the course of his distinguished career.For anyone who may be "on the fence" about the importance of expertization, I have taken the liberty of reproducing an article from the September, 2021 American Philatelist (photos 12-15) about one APS member's experiences with buying stamps at auction and then having them certified. If you take the time to read or even scan it, I think you will be shocked, as was I. Bottom line is: classic US stamps purchased without expert certification have about a 50/50 chance of being altered, misidentified or having some type of flaw or defect. Those odds might be okay for Vegas, but not, I suspect, for many philatelists. I should also point out, that the gentleman who wrote this article was buying from many of the big auction houses of the day, prior to the advent and proliferation of on-line auctions. In today's environment, where virtually anyone can be an auction house, the odds are probably less than even that you will get what you pay for when buying uncertified stamps. I've taken all the guesswork out of this one. As you review all the #491's currently available on Hip, you'll find that you can spend well over $8500 for uncertified copies (285336380665) or $325 for a really nice stamp with a good cert. Seems like a "no-brainer" to me. It also makes reselling the stamp a lot easier when the time comes.Warning on Fake Certificates of AuthenticityThere are some unscrupulous sellers out there who are using Photoshop or similar apps to create fake COA’s that they include with their listings. One example is Hip listing 315049685421(listing has ended but is preserved here as photos 16 & 17) for a pair of U.S. #595. This seller appears not to know the U.S. stamp market very well as the certificate is identified as a PSE cert in the listing, but the photo of the fake certificate is that of an altered PF cert. All collectors should be aware that the “big three” expertizing services (APEX, PF & PSE) have certificate verification features on their respective web sites. If you check the number on the fake cert with the PF web site, you will find that the certificate number is bogus. If you have any reason to believe that a certificate is suspicious, you can find a copy of the original cert on the appropriate web site. Make sure the photos of the stamp listed, the photo on the listed certificate and the one on the expertizer’s web site all match exactly.

Seller Information

Seller

stephenwgill (249)

Registered Since

03/06/2005

Feedback

100%

Store

Ye Olde Post Office

• Offers
• Sales

Item Location

California, United States

Ships To

United States

Shipping Instructions

About Shipping: I’m pretty sure you’ve figured out by now that there’s no such thing as free shipping. Every seller who offers “free shipping” has already baked the shipping fees into the listing price. Which means you get to pay sales tax on everything including the “free shipping.” I price my items very competitively and charge a nominal shipping fee on the first item you purchase. Every additional item really does ship free as my price doesn’t include any kind of shipping or handling charges. In most cases, the catalog value of the stamps I use to ship your item(s) will exceed whatever you have paid for shipping, so in that respect, the shipping is just about a wash.

Returns Accepted

Yes

Returns Policy

Returns accepted within 14 days on items not as described. Buyer to pay return shipping.