Black Jack with fake "D" grill

rolew1946

I know most of you get turned on by a 98J or a 100 but how many of you get turned on by a fake grill? My latest, best purchase is of a #73 with a fake "D" grill and it has a PSE cert from 2006. The best thing is it only cost $11.00 including shipping.

This is not a crude fake. It is a very well done fake. The only indication of it being fake is that the grill points are not designed quite right. They are more blunt than pyramid looking. Using the specialty gauge, the points are just a tad bit off vertically but horizontally they are right on. This fake could fool many people. The difference in price according to the SMQ: #73 - $21 -- #84 - $2,300 (condition is judged to be VG50).

I will now return you to graded stamps. I still have not received anything from my submission from May 21.

Rolin

edueku

Write Camille Nicholas at: cnicholas@collectors.com ,she is very helpful. Make sure you include your submission #.

Many experts seem to disagree about grills so you never know.

Oh wait you already posted somewhere that they were still working on your submission didn't you?

rolew1946

Thanks for the email address.

As to the grill, I trust my own expertise and agree with PSE. I could possibly get a couple of experts to bite, that is how good this one is.

Matttodd1

Rolin,

Can you post pictures of the grill, along with a genuine D grill? That would be interesting to see.

Matt

edueku

Might be hard to get a good pic. I know I have a hard time examining the few grilled stamps I have even in strong light and magnification.

rolew1946

This is about the best I can do. If you have done any work with the 1860s grills the difference should be obvious.

edueku

right one fake?

rolew1946

You pass the expert test. The left one has clear pyramid appearing impressions and the right one is more rounded appearing.

edueku

But even a genuine impression might not be clear that's why I stated it might be hard to see in a pic. Then again I can barely post a pic here.

rolew1946

I had to really manipulate the contrast and brightness to get the right one to show reasonably well.

Now on this stamp an expert might say that the rounding was caused because multiple sheets were grilled at the same time. This is a good possibility and it is similar to what happened with the bank note grills. The next thing that is looked at is the spacing of the points in the rows and columns and that is the real give away to it being fake. On the left stamp the points are evenly spaced, without question. On the fake it takes careful observation of the real stamp to see that there is uneven spacing in a few places.

I do believe that you would be able to identify a fake almost every time, especially if you had an authentic stamp to look at.

On a side note, the Frajola board is discussing certs and grills. Kind of interesting discussion but with just one thing lacking, the experts have never agreed on what constitutes a grill. In other words, how many points must be showing before a stamp can be identified as being grilled. An age old question that will not likely be answered in my life time. Of course Scott gets around it by saying the prices are for complete, well struck grills.

edueku

I check out the board frequently. I caught a lot of the grill discussions going on, I find it fascinating, although a bit confusing, but fortunately most of my collecting focuses on 1890-1930.

Matttodd1

Thanks for the images Rolin! I love seeing things like this, as it's very educational.

Matt