I’m curious; is the notary seal on the KOS certificate in the exact same spot as on the DeCosta certificate? What are the chances of that randomly happeining?
Like others who had seen hte Kos image, I, too, questioned its lack of an embossed (and inked) seal, and the lack of a signature block -- two, very prominent features on the DeCosta image. However, my assertions about the Kos image being a forgery did not hinge on the presence or absence of these features. Since I always maintained that the forger had to have used a genuine copy of a COLB for the basis of the forgery, any other features that a genuine COLB should have would be present on the forgery as well.
In other words, I was not surprised, and my theory was not impacted, when these features were revealed later on through image enhancements.
In the instance of making the Kos forgery, I had already determined that it was based on one or two real cOLB images. I also reasoned that the forger would NOT want to duplicate the size and position of the seal and signature stamps on the DeCosta image because no two of these are ever alike, and duplicating them would be a dead giveaway that a forgery had taken place.
So, the presence of a seal, "hidden" or otherwise, that was not the same size and not in the same position as the DeCosta image turned out to be the conssequence of copying the background from a second COLB, as I surmised.