The Scott #78 was issued in 1862 with an earliest known cover reported on October 29th 1862. Approximately 9,620,000 are estimated to have been produced. Several varieties exist, most notable being the scratch under the "A" in postage and a printing on both sides. The issue was produced from one plate called "6". The Scott #78 can be found in shades of lilac, dark lilac, gray lilac, gray and blackish violet. It is typically found with black, blue, red, magenta and green colored cancels and many cancellation varieties exist.

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Sonic Imagery Labs Philatelic Forensic Division, located in California has, for many months, had a special relationship with DIES&DAS Ltd. We have agreed to examine the items that DIES&DAS Ltd sent to us on behalf of their clients.

Provenance Information
At the time of publication of this report the only purchasing information we have is that it was purchased on eBay from seller ID "pcheltenham". eBay item number 1352197744

Upon examination with only the naked eye the subject appears to be very well-centered, with medium margins and a killer cancel in the upper left corner. The cancellation ink spills off into 5 of the perforation holes at the top edge. The cancellation ink also spills off into 5 of the perforation holes at the left edge.

Under magnification and direct lighting, the first signs of alteration start to become clear. The red arrows on the photomicrograph to the left indicate that the perforation hole has been altered or cleaned up. The original ink of the cancellation is missing and clean white paper is exposed.

Most of the perforation tips appear authentic. They show signs of cancellation ink and the paper fibers appear to be pulled away in a genuine manner.

Also note that the middle hole is much larger than the holes alongside it. The left edge of the center perf hole's edge is very clean and sharp. This is not indicative of a genuine perf hole.

The red lines on the photomicrograph to the left help the eye judge the relative straightness of the perforation edge. This technique can be done at home if you have a computer and a scanner. Many image processing programs will allow you to draw perfect boxes or straight lines on scanned images.

The image of the wheels shown here illustrates how stamps were perforated. The sheet of stamps is shown as the letter "C". The wheel "A" has pins that punch the holes into the sheet of stamps and line up with matching holes in wheel "B".

Because the contract printers for the post office department used this method, it produces slightly oval holes. Oval shaped holes makes the forger's life very difficult. Conversely it helps us detect when a stamp has been reperforated.
Check out the Fake Scott #519 and Fake Scott #72 article on this website and note the similarities of the perforation alterations. Then check out the RW5 reperf job and note the different reperforation "fingerprint".

Here is our subject floating around in watermark fluid. Watermark fluid is a great indicator of repaired and sealed tears. It will also reveal paper thins as darker areas if the tray or background is black.

Our subject does not appear to have any obvious physical damage.

The following images are of our subject exposed to different wavelengths of UV light. Why is this important and why do we care? Because by changing our light source, its discrete wavelength, and its intensity we can cause atoms and molecules of differing materials to fluoresce, glow, absorb, or change color to detect flaws or other hidden defects that our eyes can't normally see. This technique also reveals whether certain modern-day cleaning fluids or acrylic paints or inks have been applied to the stamp to enhance it in some way.

Our subject under very short wave UV. He appears to be violently luminescent. This happens when a stamp is washed in a cleaner or laundry detergent that has a fluorescent chemical brightener added to it. The brightener gets into and coats the paper fibers and is difficult to rinse out.

Stamps of this era are never fluorescent or luminescent.

Our subject's backside under very short wave UV. There also appears to be some adhesive or chemical at the 3 far corners. It is not uncommon for the use of cyanoacrylates to be used in the repair of stamps. By adding "Superglue Thinner" to a cyanoacrylate adhesive, its viscosity can be lowered so it will easily soak into paper and becomes very useful for sealing tears. In this case there is no evidence of a tear or delaminating of the paper fibers.

At extreme magnifications, the corners of the stamp do appear to have small crystals of an adhesive tangled among the paper fibers. The adhesive crystal formation is smoother and more consistant with a product called "Tak Pak" than a thinned solution of "Super Glue", which produces a granular structure in open air or on flat open surfaces.

A solvent called Methyl Ethyl Ketone (MEK) will turn dryed cyanoacrylate based super glues into a fine white powder which then can be rinsed off in warm water. MEK on "Tak Pak" will turn into a brown fine powder and requires more rinsing and can stain the paper. No attempt was made to do this as the subject did not belong to the lab.

Had the paper been thinned, delaminated, or split internally at the corners, it would of shown at the corners when immersed in watermark fluid as a dark area below the glue. Perhaps, in the subject's past life, the stamp was simply glued to a page in an album.

Our subject's backside under long wave UV. Note that the corners do not fluoresce at this wavelength. What does stand out at this wavelength is biological material. In this case biological material does not glow but appears very dark.

The dark spots which appear to be paper inclusions are actually crumbs of food particles. At very high magnification, they appear to be crumbs from a coconut / sugar and cinnamon covered mini - doughnut. Several pieces of this material were placed on a calibrated flavor verification device (my tongue). The instrument (my brain) verifies a sugar component.