widglo - good catch. Of course you are correct.
Obviously, the PF didn't plate it - but they made the mistake of confusing the top line. Obviously Dick Celler didn't get that one submitted to him.
One should always try to verify a plating, if and when you can. That's why its often really useful to know the source of the plating. Who identified it. For example, if I had a stamp that Dick Celler, or Njs had plated, I would pretty much believe it. Both of them were/are talented platers who perform due diligence, and have proper reference material. They also have a lot of years of experience in doing this.
I will say, that even the better platers still make mistakes. Plating can be very complicated, depending on the stamp. Complexity, alone, invites some degree of error. There are different categories of mistakes. If for example, its a plate 3 A relief stamp, then you know those are often hard to plate, and reference material is scarce, so, even from a good plater, you might start off assuming its ok, but wanting to verify at some point when you see something that matches (an intersecting multiple, for example).
Another type of mistake, that even the best make, is in simply writing down the plate position incorrectly, even if they plated it correctly.
I have a perfect example of this on a cover I have. It is a fairly well-known cover that Ashbrook wrote all over the back of --- and in addition he wrote down the plate position of the 1c stamp. He noted it as 35R1E. That resolves to a Ty IIIA position in Neinken. The stamp is a Ty II by inspection, and doesn't resemble 35R1E to me. Furthermore, this cover has been in a lot of major collections, and has appeared for sale many times over the years. Almost every time, the 1c stamp gets a different Scott catalog number. Big grin. I've seen it sold as a #7, #8A, and when I bought it, it was sold as a #9. Gotta love it. Anyway, I finally plated it and I'm positive it is 35L1E. So Ashbrook wrote the pane down incorrectly. That simple mistake has lead to 60-70 years of misidentifying the stamp on this cover. 35L1E is a Ty II, #7, which is what the stamp clearly is.
Then you get the whole category of errors when people who don't understand the level of detailed work required to properly verify that you have a stamp correctly plated. This is detailed work, which requires double and triple checking, and often, exhaustive comparisons against all other possibilities, in order to be sure of a difficult-to-plate item.
So, once again, the message is - always try to verify platings; regardless. They usually tend to be right, as advertised, however, too often, there are mistakes, so its good to be careful.
You and dudley already found one mistake I had - the 39R3 (alleged) that I had which wound up being plate 2. Cipolla had plated it to 39R3 decades ago, and when I got it, I didn't have the digital on-line reference for plate 2 that exists now. I had a lot of plate 2 stamps to compare against, but I was never able to fully match that stamp. I carried it as 39R3, but I was never able to prove it - now with good reference material online and such, I believe it was dudley, who did a great job of finally solving that one. Also, the Eubanks plate 3 that you bought recently, and that you and Njs plated to 46L3 - that was mine as well, but I was never able to plate it. I had no reference material from that portion of the plate. So good going!
Posted 01/11/2022 12:50 pm
