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Message:: [QUOTE="Small Size, post: 2598913, member: 77924"]Philatelists have very advanced methods of determining when an overprint was added before or after a stamp was cancelled. The same with determining if a stamp was always on a cover, or was added later with an "authenticating" bogus postmark seeming to attach it. The same with determining if an apparently mint stamp ever had a cancellation mark. I bet the boys at APS could give you some ideas.Here's an idea - see if you can identify the "APPROVED" stamp's manufacturer. "Approved" is a common enough subject of a stamp to probably be made as a standard product by a number of companies, with changes over the years.Of course, it could be a custom job made for an inspector tired of writing the word and his initials, and its source is so obscure as to be indeterminable.I'll say this - based purely on the images, it looks to me like "APPROVED" was already on the sheet when the note was printed. I also don't think PMG would go out on such a limb if they weren't pretty sure; being wrong could severely damage their credibility.[/QUOTE]