No. While I feel that I am knowledgeable about stamps, I don’t feel confident enough to say with absolute certainty that an item is genuine or not. Also, the expertizing committees utilize technology and devices that I don’t have at my disposal. Any attempt that I would make to pass judgment on a stamp would use very primitive techniques compared to the resources available to the expertizing agencies.

For example, an agency may utilize a $10,000 specialized microscope for detecting watermarks and removed cancels. When you’re expertizing thousands of stamps and charging a fee, you can afford that microscope. For someone like me, I can’t justify the cost for the amount of times I could use that piece of equipment.

Can I give unofficial opinions on stamps? Yes. By no means am I encouraging folks to send stamps to me. I simply don’t have the time to sit down and give opinions, even if I did it for a fee. I’m very busy and there just aren’t enough hours in the day already. But in the past, I’ve had a few people send me a stamp or two and ask my opinion.

In one case, I had someone who wasn’t very knowledgeable about stamps contact me about a rare coil he found. He sent the stamp to me. I saved him a bunch of money because the stamp wasn’t a coil issue. It came from a booklet. That was easy and I’m 100% positive that I’m right.

There are other instances where, say, I feel the stamp is regummed. And I say so with a high degree of confidence. At the other extreme, there are times when I just don’t know. Some fakes and some regummed or reperforated stamps are very difficult to detect. Without years of experience or sophisticated techniques, I can’t say with any level of certainty. Sometimes I have to say, “I honestly don’t know.”