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Hello! looking for hi-quality photo of FRANKLIN 1c US Scott #9B - Diagonal half used as 1/2c on cover

Thank you
Alex

findyourstampsvalue. ...

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re: Looking For Hi-Quality Photo of Franklin SC #9b

I searched the Philatelic Foundation for one and they don't have one. I wonder if a 9b bisect on cover even exists.

This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
09 Jun 2024
11:33:10am

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re: Looking For Hi-Quality Photo of Franklin SC #9b

Beautiful picture Jack!! I wonder how many are out there. Scott's mentions one that was used to mail a circular as being unique but obviously this one is different!

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re: Looking For Hi-Quality Photo of Franklin SC #9b

It appears not to have been a particularly good buy at $52.5K in 2013. It was sold again in 2019 by Sotheby's for $32.5K. At this rate, I may be able to afford it soon

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re: Looking For Hi-Quality Photo of Franklin SC #9b

I have no particular expertise with bisects. The catalogue entry in the Siegel 2013 sales discusses the discovery and expertizing at some length:

Discovery of the 1851 Half-Cent Bisect

There are really no true first discoveries in philately. From the moment an item is
created—a printed stamp, a postal marking or a piece of mail—it has been
“discovered.” The period between creation and entry into the appreciative circle of
philatelists is when an item lies unrecognized for its significance and value. Previously
unrecorded examples of known (or catalogued) items are still found with some
frequency. However, the emergence of a completely new category of item—such as the
1851 Half-Cent Bisect—is an unusual event. Such discoveries not only change the tally
of items, but they create a new type of item to count. They also have the potential to
change our view of postal history or stamp production.

Covers usually spend the dormant period before discovery with non-collectors, such
as businesses and families in possession of archival correspondence. When a previously
unknown cover enters the philatelic arena, it becomes recorded for the first time. The
1851 Half-Cent Bisect is a remarkable discovery in many ways, but the first is
provenance. It was not found in an old trunk owned by Julia Goff ’s descendants, but
had actually been in philatelic/numismatic hands for decades.

The cover was acquired by a collector several years ago from a midwestern stamp
and coin dealer who had been in business since just after World War II and had
purchased numerous collections from various owners and estates. When the dealer
was more or less retired, he began to sort through many dozens of cartons of
accumulated material. As he sorted items he put aside the covers for further study.
Eventually the dealer agreed to let his collector friend help him sort through the
boxes of covers and choose items to purchase. During this lengthy process, the collector
bought a number of interesting items, and then came across the 1851 Half-Cent Bisect
cover. The dealer offered it for a very reasonable price, remarking “too bad it wasn’t
tied or it would be a great item.” His comment reflects the mindset that bisects must be
tied by a cancel across the cut, even though such ties occur purely by coincidence.

In 2007 the collector posted an image of his acquisition on the Frajola internet chat
board, asking for information about the peculiar half-cent bisect. One of the board
followers, Roland H. Cipolla II, immediately recognized the item as an in-state circular
prepaid for the half-cent rate applicable to newspapers and periodicals. The next day
Cipolla succeeded in buying the cover, “as is” and based entirely on the scanned image.
The cover’s journey from Julia Goff in Connecticut to an old-time collection, then to
a midwest dealer, followed by his lucky collector friend, and, finally, to Ron Cipolla,
leads to the starting point of the effort to verify the item’s genuineness.

Expertizing the 1851 Half-Cent Bisect

The upper right diagonal half of the 1¢ Type IV imperforate stamp from Plate 1
Late was affixed to the upper left corner of the folded notice. When the New Haven
post office employee struck the June 29 datestamp on the stamp and the address side
of the notice, he missed the edge of the cut by millimeters. Therefore, the stamp is tied
along two sides, but the datestamp does not overlap the cut and the underlying paper
on the other side. The absence of a “tie” is what led the coin dealer to denigrate his
own item. It also created the need for special authentication procedures to ensure that
the stamp and cover had never been altered or manipulated to create a bisect from a
whole stamp.

In August 2010 the cover was brought to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum
in Washington D.C. where tests were performed by Ron Cipolla and Thomas Lera
(NPM Blount Chair) on a piece of equipment called the VSC 6000. The initials stand
for Video Spectral Comparator, a digital imaging system designed to detect
irregularities in altered or counterfeit documents. Under various forms of
illumination, from ultraviolet through visible to infrared wavelengths, the cover
showed no signs of manipulation, such as a shadow of the other half of the stamp,
residue of gum outside the boundary of the bisect, or an erased postage due marking.
A second round of testing was performed in May 2012, using X-ray fluorescence
(XRF) on a Brucker Tracer III machine and infrared spectroscopy on a FTIR
spectrometer. These tests reveal the chemical composition of documents, including
paper, ink and chemical residue. The results of the XRF and FTIR tests confirmed that
all of the elements of the cover—the stamp, postmark and paper—were original and
unaltered, and that nothing was missing or had been removed from the cover, such as
another stamp (or half stamp) or due marking.

Ron Cipolla submitted the 1851 Half-Cent Bisect cover for examination and
certification by The Philatelic Foundation, and on October 23, 2012, certificate 507181
was issued, stating that the cover was a genuine use of the bisect. His article
documenting the discovery and the details of the expertizing process was published in
Chronicle 237 (February 2013).

BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 500 categories
10 Jun 2024
07:56:15am

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re: Looking For Hi-Quality Photo of Franklin SC #9b

The excitement of an original discovery, and the risks of the rarefied strata of philately. Remove a few well-heeled players in a particular field and the game changes completely.

Roy



www.Buckacover.com

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re: Looking For Hi-Quality Photo of Franklin SC #9b

thank you!

findyourstampsvalue. ...