The International STa"M Forum

Today I re-glued a matlis that came loose by a seam. I noticed that the seam is stitched almost from the top edge to the bottom edge. It is my understanding that the seam shouldn't be sewn from edge to edge so that the klaf wouldn't tear. I checked a few more seams and they were sewn in the same manner as well. This particular sefer is used for rosh chodesh and yomim tovim. Should the seams be redone, or would it be better to leave it as is since it's not used as often?

I was checking a new set of parshiyos today for a basic kosher lechatchillah set of tefillin I am putting together to sell. The hagoha was going really well until the last parsha, where I encountered this: It is clear that some sort of (suspicious) mechika was made on the kuf. I bought the parsha from a socher (although I prefer working with sofrim for this exact Reason -but I didn't have a choice really). While the socher vouches for ksav kabollah and general ehrlichkeit (don't they all), I really get bad vibes when I see a mechika like this. A Lot of scratching between a gug and regel of a kuf is not a good sign.  On the one hand it's b'chezkas kashrus. Certainly if it was someone's personal tefillin already in use, it's not my business to be a forensic detective, and obviously I wouldn't say a word to the customer. But these are new tefillin and the customer is trusting I give him something I'm happy with... If I was dealing with the sofer di...

Is it מעכב if the תיתורא תחתונה doesn't meat up with the עליונה How is it fixed?

Would any one consider the vuv of the Shem to be OK?

I am looking to restore a pre Holocaust  Sefer Torah I need a Lab in NYC that can wash all the years of dust off does anybody have info on a reliable Lab Thank You

It's been a few years now that this hechsher with these mezuzos are going around we can't only blame the public for being ignorant when buying stam but we also have to stop the bad seller's

B"H Shalom rabbonim and STaM chevre, question: what price (in dollars) should a sofer with mehudar ktav charge per amud (including klaf) for writing shir hashirim and megillot eicha and rut? how many amudim does each one have? thank you for sharing your wisdom, experience and expertise

It seems that there are retzuot that are laminated instead of painted. Retzuot covered in Plastic

I recently upgraded my computer checking program to DUK version 3. It uses the Cannon EOS 1200D camera. Before that I was using an older version with an A3 scanner that was sharp and reliable. I find the camera images are dark and sometimes blurry on the edges. Also the light reflects off the letters sometimes. Are there any tips that anyone can offer to take better images? Thanks

Recently I saw Mezuzos shrink-wrapped. Is that really a smart idea? Some people use saran-wrap, others use wax paper. I've seen Mezuzos wrapped first and then rolled up so that the plastic covers all the words, is that oisgehalten? I can't find a reason to prohibit it, but it just seems to me that it might be a problem. How do you wrap your mezuzos?

What do you think of these yuddin, and the vav? (Enlarged many, many times.) Here's the entire mezuzah with the penny for scale. There's this embossing from the other side, but it's only visible from this side. Ever seen that before? Please comment with your opinions.

Since there has been a spate of posts pertaining to fraud, I feel compelled to post this truly shocking case that just came my way. A good Jew from Melbourne who has been very ill (life threatening) asked his Rabbi to bring me his tefillin for checking. The tefillin were bought for $500 USD at a "Tashmishei Kedusha" store in the old city of Yerushalayim. The buyer met with the sofer himself (see attached card) who assured him the tefillin were strictly kosher and that he had put them together himself. The sofer  wore a beard and Yarmulkah and presented certification. I recognised the "certification" that came with the tefillin as I had encountered problems before from this sofer. So I opened up the tefillin together with the rabbi, and what we found was mindboggling: Please see the pictures below and note the following: 1) shel yad old mashuach possul letters, kav moshuch, cracks,  no tagin etc. 2) shel rosh - every parshah from a different sofer (no way it c...