I was indeed privileged to be invited by The Collectors Club of New York, to give a talk on the 16th September 2009 about my research on the Great Britain 1858-79 1d plate 77 stamp and my 1865 cover to Guernsey franked with three examples of this iconic stamp.

I was also indeed very privileged to be accompanied by Professor Gene Hall, Rutgers University, who also proceeded to discuss his analytical findings on the the three stamps on the cover.

The following are scans of the pages which appeared in The Collectors Philatelist November-December 2009 edition that covered this exciting event.

I would like to draw the attention of the reader to the last paragraph of this article which comments on the presence of Mr. Richard Debney, the expert at The Philatelic Foundation and who was behind the scientifically discredited 'altered' certificate which was issued by them. Richard Debney claimed that the faking was done through 'painting'.

It does appear that to some so-called 'experts' in philately that observations using a magnifying glass with white light certainly reign above any scientific findings and evidence obtained using scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and EDXRF.