The Expert Committee of the Royal Philatelic Society London
The Expert Committee has been providing Certificates since 1894 and continues to meet regularly for this purpose.
All items are submitted only on the basis that the submitter accepts our Service Conditions, including our limitation of liability.
Meeting Dates 2024
- 31st January 2024
- 13th March 2024
- 24th April 2024
- 5th June 2024
- 17th July 2024
- 28th August 2024
- 2nd October 2024
- 6th November 2024
- 11th December 2024
Certificate Application
25% discount for Fellows and Members of the Royal Philatelic society London.
50% discount on first TWO items in each calendar year
10% discount for members of the Philatelic Traders Society.
50% discount on the first TWO items in each calendar year
Submissions / Contact
By post: The Expert Committee
The Royal Philatelic Society London
15 Abchurch Lane
London
EC4N 7BW
Email: experts@rpsl.limited
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7935 7332
Forensic Philately
Philatelists face the challenge of assessing whether an item they wish to purchase or own is an item that matches the description in reference books. Such publications may include details of rarer items that, for example, may only be found as a ‘flaw’, the result of the printing process. Thus, only one stamp may have this difference compared with all the other stamps on that sheet, creating a potential premium.
This article, published in The London Philatelist in April 2015, provides an example of fraudulent manipulation, demonstrated by forensic philately.
Certificate Numbers by Year
RPSL Limited Expert Committee’s Certificate Numbers
Frank Walton FRPSL
The Supplement to The London Philatelist, entitled “The Expert Committee 1894-1994” provides a great deal of information about the history of this invaluable aspect of the Society’s services, provided since 1983 by its limited liability subsidiary, RPSL Limited. This supplement was circulated to members to mark the Experts’ centenary in April 1984, but it is now most readily available to newer members via the LP Archival Edition.
During research into the provenance of rare items, old RPSL Expert Committee certificates are frequently encountered. However, the date of these certificates is not alway recorded. To overcome this, I have listed statistics about the annual creation of certificates; this allows a stamp with a particular certificate number to be reasonably accurately dated. The columns show the year, the number of certificates issued and then the highest number issued in that year.
