R154 Bisects and the Certification Process

The two document fragments below with R154 bisects were included in the recent American Revenuer article arguing for the inclusion of an R163 bisect in the Scott Catalog.  As with the R163 bisect document fragments, the examples below demonstrate a legitimate and timely use for bisects when insurance companies, requiring half cent stamps to comply with the 1898 tax law, did not all have access to the half cent battleship stamps.

The Travelers Insurance Company agents H. D. Eichelberger & Company applied the R154 bisects to a Travelers accident policy, and then canceled the stamps in manuscript with "HDE&Co", plus a date.  Note that the first fragment is tied by the manuscript cancel, the second fragment's pen cancel does not show up on the background paper, though it is consistent across the stamps.

Late last year I submitted these fragments to the Philatelic Foundation for certificates.  They came back with mixed results.  The first fragment, with a full R154 and a bisected R154 with the pen tying the stamps to the fragment, was judged to be a genuine bisect.  The second fragment, with a full copy of R155, and without evidence of a "tie" by the pen, received a "no opinion" from the Philatelic Foundation.  The two certificates follow:

The experts at the PF seem to have used a single criterion to judge the first bisect as genuine: the presence of the cancel tying the stamp to the document; while using the absence of a tying cancel on the second fragment to justify thet lack of an opinion.  I guess I need to respect the decision, but the PF ignores multiple layers of evidence   The arguments that the second fragment is legitimate are multiple:

• The stamps are applied to a fragment consistent with an accident insurance policy;
• The person that applied the cancel to the first bisect that was judged genuine is the same person that applied the cancel to the second (perhaps a forensic handwriting expert must provide an opinion?);
• The bisect example was provided to the PF within the context of three other "genuine" bisects (two were R163s) according the the PF; the backing fragment is consistent across all of the examples

Experienced collectors know better.  For posterity, the R154 bisect above canceled with the R155 is a genuine bisect and is a scarce collectible.