Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
I generally trend toward aquiring postally used examples because, to me, they just have a certain charm about them. They did their job. They pushed the mail and they've proven themselves to be survivors. Also, it provides an added collecting dimension of funding one that is "gracefully" or "artfully" cancelled. Not one that was obliterated. Not to mention that if you're already inclined toward that direction, they can be a fraction of the cost. But hey, I get it... Whats not to love about a beautiful mint copy of any classic stamp. They're easy to like!
Do you mix used and mint on any page or within a series?
Would appreciate hearing the thoughts of others on this aspect of our hobby.
Thanks in advance,
-Ernie
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I would think having both is the way to go. My "duplicate album" is mostly used, where as my main album is mostly mint. As I acquire new mint stamps, the used ones migrate to the duplicate album. Best of both worlds.
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my stamp collections play second fiddle to my cover collection, so there's likely bias there. In addition, i've never worried about gum EXCEPT to think it might stick to something. Finally, I like postmarks. They tell a whole other story in addition to the stamp's. So, I prefer used to mint, but i'll put any stamp in my album, including seconds, and don't object to mint, used, filler, CTO, and precancel all sitting, side by side. Of course, my pages are nothing like Roy's and Bob's; they are merely where I park my stamps for order's sake, not aesthetics
David
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David,
Speaking about collecting covers VS. Single stamps.... I've always been kind of amazed how so many classic stamps, US, GB Canada and others, even survived on cover. Just considering the history of stamp collecting and philately, I was under the impression that the hobby "took off" very very quickly. It would seem that almost everyone would be soaking off stamps to put into albums but I guess you just have to think of the sheer volume of correspondence that sat in desk drawers, file cabinets etc.
Any major auction catalogue has examples of classics "on cover" I'm always surprised that they made it. Wasn't collecting stamps on cover a fairly recent phenomenon?
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Ernie, I feel the same as you about used stamps, and generally consider mint ones to be just contrived collectibles like "collector" plates, or just about anything from the Franklin Mint. However, Grandpa left me (among other things) a mint Prexie set and a mint baby Zep (I think he bought them at the post office himself) and I have no problem with those in my album.
Also, if I get relatively expensive mint items in auction lots that I bought for something else, I'll mix them in, but I don't actively search for them.
Sometimes though, I get tired of looking at empty spaces and will often fill them with mint ones if long searches do not produce used copies of common stamps. Maybe I'll go back through now and make an approvals want list...
Chris
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I love covers. They tell a story, especially small town cancels and interesting transit markings.
I collect my Franklins as my main collection, and aside from all the varieties of stamps, the covers are the most illusive. For instance, Scott 314 is the imperf variety that was created to help the companies that were trying to perfect automation... stamp vending machines and stamp affixing machines. That led to the private perforations as each company tried it's own way to separate the coils they created.
The hard part? Try to find these on cover! I don't believe that some of the Scott listed perforation types were ever commercially used. The most common is the Schermack Type III, and from my research I've started a list of companies that seem to have bought their equipment. The rest? I've found them on philatelic motivated covers of the era. Hint- a known stamp dealer's name and address... or several manufacturers perfs on a single cover. I save jpgs of those for my records but I wouldn't be spending the big bucks they're asking.
Back to the subject... as I attack my hoard, I see that I probably have a pretty good collection of 20th century through the 1980 or so date I stopped collecting. I saved everything. So when I get to doing my album, there may just be a page per stamp or set. Yea, that page may have a mint stamp, maybe a FDC or an interesting cover with commercial usage like a registered letter... On other pages, the issue may be represented with a used socked on the nose block, single stamps of the corners opposite the plate block, or a coil strip of six. No rules, whatever I have found interesting enough to save!
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Early on in my collecting days, filling spaces was the goal. So, used, unused, MNH fillers, anything went. Then I stopped that when I started to get high-end albums. Now I'm after MNH. For older material, I do look at the catalog values and where the cost for a MNH, or even unused stamp is too prohibitive, I'll get a nice copy of the stamp in used condition.
Often when I buy collections, I'll find stamps that I need, but they are used. That's all right. I'll eventually find the MNH version of the stamp. I also do this if I have almost an entire set in used condition, and that last stamp comes my way used, I'll buy it. Then when I obtain the MNH set, I'll sell the complete used set.
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11:41:57pm
I like them both, but I'm on a tight budget so I'm at the "I'll take what I get and make it look attractive in an album" phase. I love the detail and artwork that you can see on a mint stamp, to be able to see what the artist was depicting.
I love the character of the used stamp, that it did it's job and is now lovingly in a "retirement resort for stamps" aka. My album. (Or what will be my album now that I decided how I will make it!
Covers are amazing! FDC's commemorating the not only the stamp, but the subject matter. Additional art so to speak to teach about something.
Or an old postcard or envelope. Was it business? A Love letter? Friends keeping in touch?
My view of collecting is that of a romantic. There is true beauty in all the things to collect.
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When I started collecting, aged about 10, nearly everything that came my way was used, whether on piece from my father's workplace, or 'swaps' from other boys at school. As an adult, I soon realised that the what interested and pleased me about stamps were their design, and the reasons behind their issue. Such a focus made used stamps irrelevant, and I now have a lot of stockbooks full of used stamps, mainly commonplace British and European, which I do not want (anyone in England may apply!).
Concentrating on mint stamps has its disadvantages, especially with countries where such creatures do not seem to exist. The Gibbons catalogue for Russia throws its hands up in despair: "Many stamps from 1939-1947 show quite marked shades, but we have only listed those of which we have examined mint examples. There is some evidence that others only exist in a cancelled-to-order condition." (5th edition, Part 10, emphasis added.)
When buying USSR stamps for a specific purpose (e.g. my Dubasov articles) I took what I could get, but when I convert that accumulation to an album, the used and CTO will go to the stockbooks as soon as I can find mint examples. The same applies to another Soviet collection I am assembling, of recess-printed stamps.
All other collections (whether written up in albums or awaiting the same) are now mint, with the exception (for some reason) of the Third Reich, where I have collected both mint and used.
Finally, MNH has never been a deal-breaker, and I will gladly include hinged mint unless the face of the stamp has been noticeably affected.
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My US National album as well as my Canada Specialty album is all used, no mint stamps are allowed 
Now my WW Minkus album is a mish mash of used, CTO, mint, I would prefer all to be used but with WW there are many stamps that are not readily (cheap) available used,so my WW albums are take what I can get.
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12:29:42pm
Guthrum,
Have you seen the compilation photos of faces of people in the world. A Photographer took a whole bunch of pictures and then compiled them in photoshop http://www.themarysue.com/average-womens-faces-worldwide/ I wonder if someone were to do the same thing with several used stamps of the same design, and removing postmarks if the whole design would come out revealing the original design. More as a reference on what a mint stamp would have looked like.....
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I generally prefer to use mint stamps for illustrations in my web pages, especially when the stamps were the springboard for the web pages. Following is a screen shot from my North Star Falling web page, about the Trans-Canada Airlines disaster in the air over Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in 1954. It's a good illustration for use in making my point, because it includes both mint and used stamps. In my opinion, the cancellation on the used stamp is distracting.
The details of the hospital ship and field hospital on the French semi-postal stamp shown below are the reason I bought the stamp in the first place, and the reason I used in in my philatelic exhibit, Compassion in Times of War. Those details are so small that they could easily be obliterated by a cancellation.
Sometimes, the cancellation on a used stamp is the reason I have the stamp in my collection. I used this stamp in an exhibit page about H.M.C.S. Kamsack, a Second World War Canadian corvette named after Kamsack, Saskatchewan:
When I started collecting stamps again in my 30s, after the fitful first attempt in my teenage years, I didn't even know that people collected covers, and I'd never heard the term "postal history" as a noun to describe used envelopes. The day that a dealer sold me a cover for a dollar and explained the meaning of some of the 20 or 30 cancellations and postmarks on it, I was reborn, and today I spend a great deal more money on covers than on stamps.
For me, a collectible cover is just a stamp or stamps on steroids, and sometimes no stamps are involved at all because the covers were posted free of charge by soldiers in combat zones or by governmental organizations. On its own, a stamp conveys relatively little information about its history or about the society that produced it at the time it was produced. Covers, with their associated addresses, postmarks, receivers, cancellations, cachets, labels, and even damage (as from plane crashes and other "adversity mail"), can hold within those details a wealth of information that no one stamp could ever reveal. Which is why, of course, that covers are generally worth more than the stamps that frank them, sometimes a great deal more. Here's an example, a cover, one of those without a stamp, posted by a Canadian airman from Ireland in the Second World War:
A first glance reveals that it from a prisoner of war. In Eire? Really? Yep!
It turns out that the airman who posted it was in an RAF or RCAF squadron (I don't recall which). Returning from a raid over Europe, the crew got lost, overshot England, and ditched in the sea off the south coast of Eire, which was neutral. The crew was rescued and interned for the duration of the war. The Irish weren't particular, they interned Germans aircrew and sailors as well, and housed them in the same POW camps, separated only by a fence.
It was a benign internment. Prisoners could request (and be granted) temporary parole any time they wanted. They regularly attended local parties and dances, played golf, and spent time as house guests of Irish families. They had a well-stocked bar in the camp. They and the Germans got on reasonably well with the German prisoners, who also got parole. There were occasional hostile but not combative encounters away from the camp, and sometimes they would bombard each other, over the fence, with rocks, garbage, etc.
The one thing they could not do was escape. If they did manage to escape and return to England, English authorities would immediately return them to internment back in Eire. It was all very gentlemanly.
So, are there any stamps that in and of themselves include such extensive provenance?
Bob
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08:37:20pm
I collect postally used if at all possible. First off, there is the obvious cost factor. Most used stamps are available on paper in kilo lots. While some kilo lots are rather dear, containing less common stamps, most are not only inexpensive but readily available. The labor of soaking, sorting examining and comparing examples is a labor of philatelic love and whatever value is built up is the product of "Sweat Equity"
If someone wants to collect World Wide, or the British Commonwealth and formerly Commonwealth nations, or any other large geographic area, Scandinavia for instance, neat clean postally used is almost an absolute requirement, unless you are financially in the same league as the quite wealthy collectors. That does change if you limit your interest to the USA or UK or some other country. Although that also can become a bit prohibitive at times.
Then there is the fact that some of the earliest stamps seem to be printed on unobtainium paper in minimal quantities before collecting used examples became de rigueur in certain circles. Also some of the classics were produced using what was truly a glutinous mixture as was originally described in the 1840 Stamp Act, a stickum that dries and cracks over time and can ruin the stamps.
The allure of collecting postally used is not just that often issues will only cost the labor of separating the stamp from the paper. It is also that it is often quite a challenge to complete certain sets in postally used condition. Many stampers simply have a new issue service purchase and sort out perfect examples of each complete issue and would have a fit were the set to be missing one value. And at times when some philatelic anomaly occurs that presents us with an elusive variation not only do nice postally used examples become more difficult to acquire, they trade on the open market for more than mint specimens.
It will take me several months to find each group of the thirty coming UK Great War Memorial issues and eventually be happy with their condition but I'll eventually have them all hinged in my UK album and often a second complete set in the Military Topic album as well, along with most of the rest of the world's WW I Memorial stamps.
That brings up another expense to consider. The first dealers simply pinned stamps to a board that displayed their inventory. However soon afterward hinges were invented and used throughout the hobby. Then in the 1930s accumulators with little philatelic knowledge or interest realized that if they had perfect mint never hinged examples there would be less to barter about when they decided to cash in their investment. The mint, never in the same room as a hinge craze followed and, of course, continues to this day thus requiring various methods of clear hingeless mounts for their precious stamps along with the expense that creates.
One additional benefit that accrues to those who collect postally used is the possibility of adding stamps that display a particular cancellation from some notable locale or or memorable date, often an event or place significant only to the individual collector.
My decision to collect postally used worldwide stamps was made over fifty years ago and has not been regretted.
I have had the pleasure of ownership. I have had the excitement of the chase, the thrill of success, as some interesting addition completes a page, or even better, a series of pages. I have long benefited from the knowledge of other cultures, of the details of printing and production that even the most oblivious accumulator is exposed to in his collecting habits. And then there is the vicarious enjoyment of visiting faraway lands that I will never actually see, or, of mentally returning to places that I have visited in my youth when I traveled extensively around this interesting globe. And last but by no means least. I have found friendship and sometimes, companionship in the numerous friends whom I have met or corresponded with from so many countries and different cultures. These things can neither be quantified nor taken away easily. They also cannot be sold in a box or an album to another person. I doubt that they can be supplied by a government New Issue Agency as some mindless drone fills an order. But to me they the true benefit of the Hobby of Kings, the King of Hobbies.
I should add that while I am deeply enmeshed within the postally used segment of the hobby, the decision to join me or to collect pristine examples of whatever area stokes your collecting fire is yours.
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An excellent case for the collection of used stamps, Charlie, one of the best I have come across. You don't mention CTO, and I'm assuming you steer clear of material soaked off prepared commemorative covers (the source of many of my used GB). But it must sometimes be difficult to distinguish postally used in certain countries which cancelled mint stamps en masse as a matter of policy, either because that's what they thought collectors wanted, or to discourage hoarding of potentially valuable currency.
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07:17:49am
Another interesting thing with the stamps are the Perfins and the Precancel. I think those add interest to the used stamps. I'm going to be making albums just for any of those I find.
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The Steiner pages has a good set of album pages for US precancels.
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"Another interesting thing with the stamps are the Perfins and the Precancel. I think those add interest to the used stamps."
I do collect perfins and precancels on my Franklin stamp. And now the challenging part... I'm trying to collect them on cover. It is interesting to see just how much prehistoric junk mail still exists.
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I would call it mind boggling how much still exists.
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I like the freshness of a Mint stamp so it's nice to try to collect Mint and complete a set. If i run into a Used stamp that is nicely postmarked, then I will definitely keep this in my collection. And I have accumulated many of these, together making a nice collection on its' own.
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Hey jimjung. Thanks for posting those. Those are very attractive stamps. Great postmarks
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I prefer Mint but obviously early stamps can be very expensive in Mint Condition. My collection is of France and 1940's and 50's tend to be more expensive used than Mint. I decided to collect both. It makes for a better collection but I do need to repeat pages sometimes to have both shown.
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Thanks Ernie for starting this thread - and to all for many interesting viewpoints!! 
I am with you Ernie in this one:
"postally used examples because, to me, they just have a certain charm about them. They did their job. "
philB - your statement
"Unused stamps are like white bread to me..i like the combination of the stamp and a good postmark ! "
I'm generally most interested in pre-1900 stamps, and quite often the mint ones are much more valuable. So, I do appreciate it when I come across a fresh mint classic of some value. However, if I get a fine postmark on the same stamp, I will display the used one and keep the mint one 'behind' the used one on my stockbook page, even tough the mint one is far more valuable. E.g. like my page 2 from Sweden (below), I am fortunate to have sc.22 (12 øre, 1872) both in mint and used condition. Mint is more than 100 times more valuable, still I display the used one, while keeping the valuable mint copy 'behind'. Probably most others would do it opposite? Well, I don't - simply because I think it looks better with a fine readable postmark
.
:And then it's the added historic element provided by the postmark - what was this place? - what did they do there? - anything special about this date at that particular place? E.g. - the postmark below is from the never-heard-off-place Waldemarsvik, dated 18 Jan 1862. This is a very small community even today - wonder how many souls where living there in 1862? That historic element is very valuable to me.
Jon
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05:40:49pm
One of the great things about this hobby is that there are literally an unlimited way to enjoy it and, on any budget. One of the angles that that I grapple with is whether to seek out postally used or mint examples.
I generally trend toward aquiring postally used examples because, to me, they just have a certain charm about them. They did their job. They pushed the mail and they've proven themselves to be survivors. Also, it provides an added collecting dimension of funding one that is "gracefully" or "artfully" cancelled. Not one that was obliterated. Not to mention that if you're already inclined toward that direction, they can be a fraction of the cost. But hey, I get it... Whats not to love about a beautiful mint copy of any classic stamp. They're easy to like!
Do you mix used and mint on any page or within a series?
Would appreciate hearing the thoughts of others on this aspect of our hobby.
Thanks in advance,
-Ernie
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re: Postally used or mint?
I would think having both is the way to go. My "duplicate album" is mostly used, where as my main album is mostly mint. As I acquire new mint stamps, the used ones migrate to the duplicate album. Best of both worlds.
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re: Postally used or mint?
my stamp collections play second fiddle to my cover collection, so there's likely bias there. In addition, i've never worried about gum EXCEPT to think it might stick to something. Finally, I like postmarks. They tell a whole other story in addition to the stamp's. So, I prefer used to mint, but i'll put any stamp in my album, including seconds, and don't object to mint, used, filler, CTO, and precancel all sitting, side by side. Of course, my pages are nothing like Roy's and Bob's; they are merely where I park my stamps for order's sake, not aesthetics
David
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06:19:27pm
re: Postally used or mint?
David,
Speaking about collecting covers VS. Single stamps.... I've always been kind of amazed how so many classic stamps, US, GB Canada and others, even survived on cover. Just considering the history of stamp collecting and philately, I was under the impression that the hobby "took off" very very quickly. It would seem that almost everyone would be soaking off stamps to put into albums but I guess you just have to think of the sheer volume of correspondence that sat in desk drawers, file cabinets etc.
Any major auction catalogue has examples of classics "on cover" I'm always surprised that they made it. Wasn't collecting stamps on cover a fairly recent phenomenon?
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re: Postally used or mint?
Ernie, I feel the same as you about used stamps, and generally consider mint ones to be just contrived collectibles like "collector" plates, or just about anything from the Franklin Mint. However, Grandpa left me (among other things) a mint Prexie set and a mint baby Zep (I think he bought them at the post office himself) and I have no problem with those in my album.
Also, if I get relatively expensive mint items in auction lots that I bought for something else, I'll mix them in, but I don't actively search for them.
Sometimes though, I get tired of looking at empty spaces and will often fill them with mint ones if long searches do not produce used copies of common stamps. Maybe I'll go back through now and make an approvals want list...
Chris
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re: Postally used or mint?
I love covers. They tell a story, especially small town cancels and interesting transit markings.
I collect my Franklins as my main collection, and aside from all the varieties of stamps, the covers are the most illusive. For instance, Scott 314 is the imperf variety that was created to help the companies that were trying to perfect automation... stamp vending machines and stamp affixing machines. That led to the private perforations as each company tried it's own way to separate the coils they created.
The hard part? Try to find these on cover! I don't believe that some of the Scott listed perforation types were ever commercially used. The most common is the Schermack Type III, and from my research I've started a list of companies that seem to have bought their equipment. The rest? I've found them on philatelic motivated covers of the era. Hint- a known stamp dealer's name and address... or several manufacturers perfs on a single cover. I save jpgs of those for my records but I wouldn't be spending the big bucks they're asking.
Back to the subject... as I attack my hoard, I see that I probably have a pretty good collection of 20th century through the 1980 or so date I stopped collecting. I saved everything. So when I get to doing my album, there may just be a page per stamp or set. Yea, that page may have a mint stamp, maybe a FDC or an interesting cover with commercial usage like a registered letter... On other pages, the issue may be represented with a used socked on the nose block, single stamps of the corners opposite the plate block, or a coil strip of six. No rules, whatever I have found interesting enough to save!
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09:17:53pm
re: Postally used or mint?
Early on in my collecting days, filling spaces was the goal. So, used, unused, MNH fillers, anything went. Then I stopped that when I started to get high-end albums. Now I'm after MNH. For older material, I do look at the catalog values and where the cost for a MNH, or even unused stamp is too prohibitive, I'll get a nice copy of the stamp in used condition.
Often when I buy collections, I'll find stamps that I need, but they are used. That's all right. I'll eventually find the MNH version of the stamp. I also do this if I have almost an entire set in used condition, and that last stamp comes my way used, I'll buy it. Then when I obtain the MNH set, I'll sell the complete used set.
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Wanting to bring the joy of stamp collecting to younger generations
18 May 2015
11:41:57pm
re: Postally used or mint?
I like them both, but I'm on a tight budget so I'm at the "I'll take what I get and make it look attractive in an album" phase. I love the detail and artwork that you can see on a mint stamp, to be able to see what the artist was depicting.
I love the character of the used stamp, that it did it's job and is now lovingly in a "retirement resort for stamps" aka. My album. (Or what will be my album now that I decided how I will make it!
Covers are amazing! FDC's commemorating the not only the stamp, but the subject matter. Additional art so to speak to teach about something.
Or an old postcard or envelope. Was it business? A Love letter? Friends keeping in touch?
My view of collecting is that of a romantic. There is true beauty in all the things to collect.
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re: Postally used or mint?
When I started collecting, aged about 10, nearly everything that came my way was used, whether on piece from my father's workplace, or 'swaps' from other boys at school. As an adult, I soon realised that the what interested and pleased me about stamps were their design, and the reasons behind their issue. Such a focus made used stamps irrelevant, and I now have a lot of stockbooks full of used stamps, mainly commonplace British and European, which I do not want (anyone in England may apply!).
Concentrating on mint stamps has its disadvantages, especially with countries where such creatures do not seem to exist. The Gibbons catalogue for Russia throws its hands up in despair: "Many stamps from 1939-1947 show quite marked shades, but we have only listed those of which we have examined mint examples. There is some evidence that others only exist in a cancelled-to-order condition." (5th edition, Part 10, emphasis added.)
When buying USSR stamps for a specific purpose (e.g. my Dubasov articles) I took what I could get, but when I convert that accumulation to an album, the used and CTO will go to the stockbooks as soon as I can find mint examples. The same applies to another Soviet collection I am assembling, of recess-printed stamps.
All other collections (whether written up in albums or awaiting the same) are now mint, with the exception (for some reason) of the Third Reich, where I have collected both mint and used.
Finally, MNH has never been a deal-breaker, and I will gladly include hinged mint unless the face of the stamp has been noticeably affected.
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re: Postally used or mint?
My US National album as well as my Canada Specialty album is all used, no mint stamps are allowed Now my WW Minkus album is a mish mash of used, CTO, mint, I would prefer all to be used but with WW there are many stamps that are not readily (cheap) available used,so my WW albums are take what I can get.
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Wanting to bring the joy of stamp collecting to younger generations
19 May 2015
12:29:42pm
re: Postally used or mint?
Guthrum,
Have you seen the compilation photos of faces of people in the world. A Photographer took a whole bunch of pictures and then compiled them in photoshop http://www.themarysue.com/average-womens-faces-worldwide/ I wonder if someone were to do the same thing with several used stamps of the same design, and removing postmarks if the whole design would come out revealing the original design. More as a reference on what a mint stamp would have looked like.....
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re: Postally used or mint?
I generally prefer to use mint stamps for illustrations in my web pages, especially when the stamps were the springboard for the web pages. Following is a screen shot from my North Star Falling web page, about the Trans-Canada Airlines disaster in the air over Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in 1954. It's a good illustration for use in making my point, because it includes both mint and used stamps. In my opinion, the cancellation on the used stamp is distracting.
The details of the hospital ship and field hospital on the French semi-postal stamp shown below are the reason I bought the stamp in the first place, and the reason I used in in my philatelic exhibit, Compassion in Times of War. Those details are so small that they could easily be obliterated by a cancellation.
Sometimes, the cancellation on a used stamp is the reason I have the stamp in my collection. I used this stamp in an exhibit page about H.M.C.S. Kamsack, a Second World War Canadian corvette named after Kamsack, Saskatchewan:
When I started collecting stamps again in my 30s, after the fitful first attempt in my teenage years, I didn't even know that people collected covers, and I'd never heard the term "postal history" as a noun to describe used envelopes. The day that a dealer sold me a cover for a dollar and explained the meaning of some of the 20 or 30 cancellations and postmarks on it, I was reborn, and today I spend a great deal more money on covers than on stamps.
For me, a collectible cover is just a stamp or stamps on steroids, and sometimes no stamps are involved at all because the covers were posted free of charge by soldiers in combat zones or by governmental organizations. On its own, a stamp conveys relatively little information about its history or about the society that produced it at the time it was produced. Covers, with their associated addresses, postmarks, receivers, cancellations, cachets, labels, and even damage (as from plane crashes and other "adversity mail"), can hold within those details a wealth of information that no one stamp could ever reveal. Which is why, of course, that covers are generally worth more than the stamps that frank them, sometimes a great deal more. Here's an example, a cover, one of those without a stamp, posted by a Canadian airman from Ireland in the Second World War:
A first glance reveals that it from a prisoner of war. In Eire? Really? Yep!
It turns out that the airman who posted it was in an RAF or RCAF squadron (I don't recall which). Returning from a raid over Europe, the crew got lost, overshot England, and ditched in the sea off the south coast of Eire, which was neutral. The crew was rescued and interned for the duration of the war. The Irish weren't particular, they interned Germans aircrew and sailors as well, and housed them in the same POW camps, separated only by a fence.
It was a benign internment. Prisoners could request (and be granted) temporary parole any time they wanted. They regularly attended local parties and dances, played golf, and spent time as house guests of Irish families. They had a well-stocked bar in the camp. They and the Germans got on reasonably well with the German prisoners, who also got parole. There were occasional hostile but not combative encounters away from the camp, and sometimes they would bombard each other, over the fence, with rocks, garbage, etc.
The one thing they could not do was escape. If they did manage to escape and return to England, English authorities would immediately return them to internment back in Eire. It was all very gentlemanly.
So, are there any stamps that in and of themselves include such extensive provenance?
Bob
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
22 May 2015
08:37:20pm
re: Postally used or mint?
I collect postally used if at all possible. First off, there is the obvious cost factor. Most used stamps are available on paper in kilo lots. While some kilo lots are rather dear, containing less common stamps, most are not only inexpensive but readily available. The labor of soaking, sorting examining and comparing examples is a labor of philatelic love and whatever value is built up is the product of "Sweat Equity"
If someone wants to collect World Wide, or the British Commonwealth and formerly Commonwealth nations, or any other large geographic area, Scandinavia for instance, neat clean postally used is almost an absolute requirement, unless you are financially in the same league as the quite wealthy collectors. That does change if you limit your interest to the USA or UK or some other country. Although that also can become a bit prohibitive at times.
Then there is the fact that some of the earliest stamps seem to be printed on unobtainium paper in minimal quantities before collecting used examples became de rigueur in certain circles. Also some of the classics were produced using what was truly a glutinous mixture as was originally described in the 1840 Stamp Act, a stickum that dries and cracks over time and can ruin the stamps.
The allure of collecting postally used is not just that often issues will only cost the labor of separating the stamp from the paper. It is also that it is often quite a challenge to complete certain sets in postally used condition. Many stampers simply have a new issue service purchase and sort out perfect examples of each complete issue and would have a fit were the set to be missing one value. And at times when some philatelic anomaly occurs that presents us with an elusive variation not only do nice postally used examples become more difficult to acquire, they trade on the open market for more than mint specimens.
It will take me several months to find each group of the thirty coming UK Great War Memorial issues and eventually be happy with their condition but I'll eventually have them all hinged in my UK album and often a second complete set in the Military Topic album as well, along with most of the rest of the world's WW I Memorial stamps.
That brings up another expense to consider. The first dealers simply pinned stamps to a board that displayed their inventory. However soon afterward hinges were invented and used throughout the hobby. Then in the 1930s accumulators with little philatelic knowledge or interest realized that if they had perfect mint never hinged examples there would be less to barter about when they decided to cash in their investment. The mint, never in the same room as a hinge craze followed and, of course, continues to this day thus requiring various methods of clear hingeless mounts for their precious stamps along with the expense that creates.
One additional benefit that accrues to those who collect postally used is the possibility of adding stamps that display a particular cancellation from some notable locale or or memorable date, often an event or place significant only to the individual collector.
My decision to collect postally used worldwide stamps was made over fifty years ago and has not been regretted.
I have had the pleasure of ownership. I have had the excitement of the chase, the thrill of success, as some interesting addition completes a page, or even better, a series of pages. I have long benefited from the knowledge of other cultures, of the details of printing and production that even the most oblivious accumulator is exposed to in his collecting habits. And then there is the vicarious enjoyment of visiting faraway lands that I will never actually see, or, of mentally returning to places that I have visited in my youth when I traveled extensively around this interesting globe. And last but by no means least. I have found friendship and sometimes, companionship in the numerous friends whom I have met or corresponded with from so many countries and different cultures. These things can neither be quantified nor taken away easily. They also cannot be sold in a box or an album to another person. I doubt that they can be supplied by a government New Issue Agency as some mindless drone fills an order. But to me they the true benefit of the Hobby of Kings, the King of Hobbies.
I should add that while I am deeply enmeshed within the postally used segment of the hobby, the decision to join me or to collect pristine examples of whatever area stokes your collecting fire is yours.
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re: Postally used or mint?
An excellent case for the collection of used stamps, Charlie, one of the best I have come across. You don't mention CTO, and I'm assuming you steer clear of material soaked off prepared commemorative covers (the source of many of my used GB). But it must sometimes be difficult to distinguish postally used in certain countries which cancelled mint stamps en masse as a matter of policy, either because that's what they thought collectors wanted, or to discourage hoarding of potentially valuable currency.
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Wanting to bring the joy of stamp collecting to younger generations
23 May 2015
07:17:49am
re: Postally used or mint?
Another interesting thing with the stamps are the Perfins and the Precancel. I think those add interest to the used stamps. I'm going to be making albums just for any of those I find.
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10:07:19am
re: Postally used or mint?
The Steiner pages has a good set of album pages for US precancels.
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re: Postally used or mint?
"Another interesting thing with the stamps are the Perfins and the Precancel. I think those add interest to the used stamps."
I do collect perfins and precancels on my Franklin stamp. And now the challenging part... I'm trying to collect them on cover. It is interesting to see just how much prehistoric junk mail still exists.
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11:52:17am
re: Postally used or mint?
I would call it mind boggling how much still exists.
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12:05:48pm
re: Postally used or mint?
I like the freshness of a Mint stamp so it's nice to try to collect Mint and complete a set. If i run into a Used stamp that is nicely postmarked, then I will definitely keep this in my collection. And I have accumulated many of these, together making a nice collection on its' own.
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12:47:40pm
re: Postally used or mint?
Hey jimjung. Thanks for posting those. Those are very attractive stamps. Great postmarks
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08:16:00am
re: Postally used or mint?
I prefer Mint but obviously early stamps can be very expensive in Mint Condition. My collection is of France and 1940's and 50's tend to be more expensive used than Mint. I decided to collect both. It makes for a better collection but I do need to repeat pages sometimes to have both shown.
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re: Postally used or mint?
Thanks Ernie for starting this thread - and to all for many interesting viewpoints!!
I am with you Ernie in this one:
"postally used examples because, to me, they just have a certain charm about them. They did their job. "
philB - your statement
"Unused stamps are like white bread to me..i like the combination of the stamp and a good postmark ! "
I'm generally most interested in pre-1900 stamps, and quite often the mint ones are much more valuable. So, I do appreciate it when I come across a fresh mint classic of some value. However, if I get a fine postmark on the same stamp, I will display the used one and keep the mint one 'behind' the used one on my stockbook page, even tough the mint one is far more valuable. E.g. like my page 2 from Sweden (below), I am fortunate to have sc.22 (12 øre, 1872) both in mint and used condition. Mint is more than 100 times more valuable, still I display the used one, while keeping the valuable mint copy 'behind'. Probably most others would do it opposite? Well, I don't - simply because I think it looks better with a fine readable postmark
.:And then it's the added historic element provided by the postmark - what was this place? - what did they do there? - anything special about this date at that particular place? E.g. - the postmark below is from the never-heard-off-place Waldemarsvik, dated 18 Jan 1862. This is a very small community even today - wonder how many souls where living there in 1862? That historic element is very valuable to me.
Jon
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