diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 4031b87..a4dc4dc 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -156,6 +156,13 @@ Performance and Security fixes - along with other improvements; immediate upgrad
 
 ### Fixed
 
+- Restore cold rejected-maintainer recovery after policy admission pre-saves
+  the newly authorized announcement for membership reconciliation. An exact
+  duplicate from that intentional pre-save now still broadcasts the
+  announcement and expands its state/Git dependencies, while a genuinely
+  superseded replaceable event remains classified as a duplicate without
+  downstream fan-out.
+
 - Discover historical repository roots and descendants from the NIP-65
   inboxes of accepted repository owners and maintainers. Public Sync+
   instances probe exact repository coordinates and every known root on those
diff --git a/src/nostr/persistence.rs b/src/nostr/persistence.rs
index aa398b9..5831a25 100644
--- a/src/nostr/persistence.rs
+++ b/src/nostr/persistence.rs
@@ -26,8 +26,14 @@ pub enum SaveContext {
 pub enum AcceptedEventSaveOutcome {
     /// The database inserted the event.
     Saved,
-    /// The database already had this event or retained a newer replaceable event.
+    /// The exact event is already stored.
+    ///
+    /// Write-policy admission may intentionally pre-save an event when
+    /// subsequent policy work needs to query it. Callers that established the
+    /// event was absent before admission must still run their post-save hooks.
     Duplicate,
+    /// The database retained a newer replaceable event instead.
+    Replaced,
 }
 
 /// Nostr-owned facade for accepted-event persistence side effects.
@@ -55,9 +61,12 @@ impl<'a> EventPersistence<'a> {
 
         let outcome = match status {
             SaveEventStatus::Success => AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Saved,
-            SaveEventStatus::Rejected(RejectedReason::Duplicate | RejectedReason::Replaced) => {
+            SaveEventStatus::Rejected(RejectedReason::Duplicate) => {
                 AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Duplicate
             }
+            SaveEventStatus::Rejected(RejectedReason::Replaced) => {
+                AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Replaced
+            }
             SaveEventStatus::Rejected(reason) => {
                 return Err(anyhow::anyhow!(
                     "Database rejected accepted event {}: {reason:?}",
diff --git a/src/purgatory/promotion_hooks.rs b/src/purgatory/promotion_hooks.rs
index 111ac5c..8bd671a 100644
--- a/src/purgatory/promotion_hooks.rs
+++ b/src/purgatory/promotion_hooks.rs
@@ -88,15 +88,17 @@ impl NostrPurgatoryPromotionHooks {
                         .save_accepted_event(&state, SaveContext::HotCacheReprocess)
                         .await
                     {
-                        Ok(AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Saved) => {
+                        Ok(
+                            AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Saved | AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Duplicate,
+                        ) => {
                             rejected_events_index.remove(&state.id);
                             relay.notify_event(state.clone());
                         }
-                        Ok(AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Duplicate) => {
+                        Ok(AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Replaced) => {
                             rejected_events_index.remove(&state.id);
                             debug!(
                                 event_id = %state.id,
-                                "Re-processed state event was already superseded or stored"
+                                "Re-processed state event was superseded"
                             );
                         }
                         Err(e) => {
@@ -201,7 +203,10 @@ impl PurgatoryPromotionHooks for NostrPurgatoryPromotionHooks {
                                     .save_accepted_event(&hot_event, SaveContext::HotCacheReprocess)
                                     .await
                                 {
-                                    Ok(AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Saved) => {
+                                    Ok(
+                                        AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Saved
+                                        | AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Duplicate,
+                                    ) => {
                                         rejected_events_index.remove(&hot_event.id);
                                         relay.notify_event(hot_event.clone());
                                         self.reprocess_state_dependencies(
@@ -217,7 +222,7 @@ impl PurgatoryPromotionHooks for NostrPurgatoryPromotionHooks {
                                             "Maintainer announcement accepted and saved on re-processing"
                                         );
                                     }
-                                    Ok(AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Duplicate) => {
+                                    Ok(AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Replaced) => {
                                         rejected_events_index.remove(&hot_event.id);
                                         self.reprocess_state_dependencies(
                                             write_policy,
@@ -229,7 +234,7 @@ impl PurgatoryPromotionHooks for NostrPurgatoryPromotionHooks {
                                         .await;
                                         debug!(
                                             event_id = %hot_event.id,
-                                            "Re-processed maintainer announcement was already superseded or stored"
+                                            "Re-processed maintainer announcement was superseded"
                                         );
                                     }
                                     Err(e) => {
diff --git a/src/sync/mod.rs b/src/sync/mod.rs
index c86b2ac..41cc3d7 100644
--- a/src/sync/mod.rs
+++ b/src/sync/mod.rs
@@ -7568,12 +7568,15 @@ impl SyncManager {
             WritePolicyResult::Accept => {
                 // Save event to database
                 match write_policy.save_accepted_event(event, save_context).await {
-                    Ok(crate::nostr::persistence::AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Saved) => {}
-                    Ok(crate::nostr::persistence::AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Duplicate) => {
+                    Ok(
+                        crate::nostr::persistence::AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Saved
+                        | crate::nostr::persistence::AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Duplicate,
+                    ) => {}
+                    Ok(crate::nostr::persistence::AcceptedEventSaveOutcome::Replaced) => {
                         tracing::trace!(
                             event_id = %event.id,
                             relay = %relay_url,
-                            "Database retained an existing event during sync"
+                            "Database retained a newer replaceable event during sync"
                         );
                         return ProcessResult::Duplicate;
                     }