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General Philatelic/Gen. Discussion : Share your worst philatelic blunder.

 

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saleem
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13 Jul 2012
09:48:56am
In the years of stamp collecting collectors have committed blunders which they realise in later years and feel real sorry at what they did - no one is perfect but these things come back to haunt us time and again. Let's share what we did that we shouldn't have if only we had proper knowledge.

Personally I remember (can't forget!) two things that I have committed in the past -
I used to separate the tabs and selvedge from stamps including selvedge with plate numbers on it!! This was some 20 years back when I was putting my collection in mounts, I had bought pre-cut mounts which couldn't accomodate stamps with attached tabs therefore a 20 year younger genius decided to do away with attached tabs and selvedge.

The second and even more horrendous blunder was removing stamps from covers - I distinctly remember removing a solo use U.S. non-denominated (5c Nonprofit presort coil) 1995 Green 'G' rate definitive from a cover. These solo usage covers are scarce and are treasured as such.

And the last one is what every one in 5 persons has done - attaching Mint stamps to album pages through hinges!

If only I had been properly coached and guided I would have been a lot happier now.

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"Experience is the name you give to the mistakes you made yesterday."
Les
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13 Jul 2012
03:50:12pm
re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

I would buy 5 new issue stamps from the post office using my meager earnings from sweeping classrooms at the rate of 10c per room. My purchase would include a plate block and a single. The plate blocks were stored in a glassine plate block album bought from H.E. Harris, but unfortunately stored in a humid basement. They were hopelessly stuck down.


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parkinlot
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Immediate Past President - West Essex Philatelic Society www.wepsonline.org

13 Jul 2012
03:58:11pm
re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

I've done all the blunders that Saleem has done. I have a couple others. When I first started collecting, I put all the mint stamps that I bought at the post office in "magnetic" photo albums. You can imagine what that did to the back of the stamps.

I purchased a lot of sand dunes, eastern block and other wallpaper pictorial CTO's. I don't really consider this a blunder even though they are pretty much worthless. This is what really got me interested in stamp collecting. When I came back to collecting as an adult, I knew what they are and avoided those issues. I still have great memories collecting those issues.

Bob

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PeterG
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17 Jul 2012
03:56:04pm
re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

When I was a little kid my grand dad started me collecting. He gave me loads of his old extras, and then he passed before really teaching me . Several years later I was sorting stamps. First into 4 types: Those inscribed post, those inscribed poste... those inscribed posta... and then those with other lettering than ours. But then suddenly a 5th type of inscription occured: Pakke Porto on some huge stamps with a standing polar bear. Me, not old enough to rad asked my parents what they said. Parcel Post was the reply.
I thought about it for a while and concluded the they wouldn´t carry letters and as such they weren´t stamps To the waste basket they went
Several years later when I got a color AFA Danmark catalogue I recognised them instantly Those classic Greenland parcel post stamps are very sought after and not all cheap To this day I still don´t have any

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cdj1122
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..

18 Jul 2012
09:02:18am
re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

The Blue Four Skilling


I recently sent a letter to a friend and had used a special block of stamps for the postage on the envelope that I thought would relate to her other interests. A few weeks later she wrote to say that she had received the letter and thought the stamps I had used were quite nice, so she told her daughter and little grand daughter that she was going to save them. Shortly thereafter her grand daughter brought her the stamps that she had been going to save, cut through with a sissor as the child tried to "Save them for Grandma".

I wrote her a further note a part of which tells the tale of the "Norwegian Blue Four Skilling".


".... Dear Phyliss,
I am glad you got the letter I sent and certainly understand the difficulties that a well meaning grand child can create. The stamps themseves are not of any great value and the next time I get to attend one of our stamp club meetings I will replace them and send you an envelope with some similar items."

"Your experience reminds me of an incident that occurred while we were living in New York almost forty years ago. My oldest daughter, Mary, was about three or four and very helpful. I had quite a stamp collection even then and had acquired several early Norwegian stamps. They were from the 1880s and denominated in "Skillings" which was the currency before they changed it to "Ore" around the turn of the century. Mary had, of course, seen me remove stamps from the paper remainders of their envelopes by soaking them in water."

"One of the nicest was a four skilling blue that had been used in 1872 or there abouts and it was the prize of a group of some ten or twelve similar stamps. One evening after arriving home from work I went to the bathroom to do what had to be done and take a shower. As I sat there comtemplating some vacuous thought I spied my treasured four skilling blue on the floor along with several other Norwegian stamps. Before I could react, or act at all, for the matter, and while a gutteral scream was but forming in the best Bosun's mate's tradition in the pit of my lungs, little Mary (Who is still alive I will add lest you become fearful of the outcome of this adventure) entered the room and told me that she had washed some stamps for me that day.
.
I gathered strength by pausing and finally asked, Where did you do that sweetheart?", fearing the answer and knowing that it was already to late to prevent the obvious. "In the bowl" the little angel replied with that helpful smile that protects infants from the mayhem that would be due them were they just a wee bit older."
.
""Here are some of them " she added and I accepted the gift of love with all the grace and class that I could muster. She also looked around and found several more off to the side. So what had been a group of ten or twelve, ( I do not like to dwell on the exact number originally there) became a group of eight that were salvageable and one that was slightly torn and had to be discarded. I remember carefully placing the survivors of their trip on the SS Tidy Bowl to the side to be rewashed and eventually I took a long , long, cold shower."
.
"I still have them and when ever I look at the page where they have resided for the last thirty-seven years I think of this and remind myself to put the damn things away when I am through with them."
.

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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
sponthetrona2
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Keep Postal systems alive, buy stamps and mail often

18 Jul 2012
10:36:01am
re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

I won't say it's the worse blunder but at the time I needed money for a down payment for a house so I sold a MNH perfectly centered attached pair each of the Graf Zepplins. Although the stamps themseles were replaced later, a matched attached pair today would be hard to find.

Image Not Found Image Not Found

Image Not Found Photographed, not scanned

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rgnpcs
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18 Jul 2012
04:21:48pm
re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

As I have been collecting stamps since 1929, I have made a few blunders. Kids, and many adults, in the early 1930's did not know that hinging a mint stamp was a no-no, so I hinged every stamps I got, and did do into the mid 1940's when the stamp dealers started to charge more for MNH.
Also I had a friend that used to give me early unaddressed First Day Covers, and I would put in my own address on them in ink. Ouch!
There is a set of stamps from Luxembourg referred to as the Professional People series SC#B65A-B65Q. For years these stamps were not listed in Scott. I had a complete set in MNH, and sold them for a dollar.
One of my other boo boos, was trading off my early baseball cards for some junk stamps. Cards were from the early 1920's to 1952, when I made the swap, and I was 29 at the time. I should have known better. This was probably my worst mistake.
As the old saying goes, "Live & Learn"!
Richaard

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rgnpcs
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18 Jul 2012
04:32:15pm
re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

Curios, what did you get for the zepp pairs? What year did you sell them.
They are sure beauties.

Richaard

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Les
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18 Jul 2012
04:46:02pm
re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

I'll bet that he sold them for a lot more than they cost today.

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Poodle_Mum
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A Service Dog gives a person with a disability independence. Never approach, distract or pet a working dog, especially when (s)he is in harness. Never be afraid to ask questions to the handler (parent).

18 Jul 2012
05:06:10pm
re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

When I was a kid they used to have dealers at the local flea market and I started buying from them (as well as my CTOs in the cereal boxes). Hey, a kid could be in heaven with $0.50 and a boxfull of stamps that cost less than a penny each. Anyway, I remember asking one of the fellas one day how do I put them on paper? I'm Deaf so it was more a guessing game when I talked with them. He was obviously explaining that I needed hinges (he didn't have any there) and I was just not understanding what he was saying. I figured it must be "stick it with...." so someone standing nearby (bless her heart for her intentions) tried to gesture what he was trying to say and after what seemed forever, she pointed to some tape that was on the table. Innocent that I was, thought, ahhh finally, I get it! Yup, I got it alright. Mum's Scotch tape and my nice stamps became friends. Thankfully I only did it for a few years before discovering my big "oops". Luckily too, they were mostly CTOs but I do have a beautiful mint set of Silver Jubilee stamps from 1978 that would be even more beautiful without the Scotch tape on the back!

Kelly

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sponthetrona2
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Keep Postal systems alive, buy stamps and mail often

18 Jul 2012
06:39:48pm
re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

I sold the pairs plus a FDC of the $2.60 and some MNH Plate Blocks in 1968 for $12,000. Although values have dropped a lot on these stamps I miss having them around. Perry

Image Not Found

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rgnpcs
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18 Jul 2012
11:07:50pm
re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

Perry,
Looks like you did ok, but I understand your wish of still having them. Sure would have made a nice exhibit page.
Several years ago I sold two sets of singles of the zepps with top & bottom plate numbers. Took a Grand Award at a show when I entered them in an exhibition.
I thought that I might have had a picture, but cannot find one,
Richaard

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Author/Postings
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saleem

13 Jul 2012
09:48:56am

In the years of stamp collecting collectors have committed blunders which they realise in later years and feel real sorry at what they did - no one is perfect but these things come back to haunt us time and again. Let's share what we did that we shouldn't have if only we had proper knowledge.

Personally I remember (can't forget!) two things that I have committed in the past -
I used to separate the tabs and selvedge from stamps including selvedge with plate numbers on it!! This was some 20 years back when I was putting my collection in mounts, I had bought pre-cut mounts which couldn't accomodate stamps with attached tabs therefore a 20 year younger genius decided to do away with attached tabs and selvedge.

The second and even more horrendous blunder was removing stamps from covers - I distinctly remember removing a solo use U.S. non-denominated (5c Nonprofit presort coil) 1995 Green 'G' rate definitive from a cover. These solo usage covers are scarce and are treasured as such.

And the last one is what every one in 5 persons has done - attaching Mint stamps to album pages through hinges!

If only I had been properly coached and guided I would have been a lot happier now.

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this post

"Experience is the name you give to the mistakes you made yesterday."
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Les

13 Jul 2012
03:50:12pm

re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

I would buy 5 new issue stamps from the post office using my meager earnings from sweeping classrooms at the rate of 10c per room. My purchase would include a plate block and a single. The plate blocks were stored in a glassine plate block album bought from H.E. Harris, but unfortunately stored in a humid basement. They were hopelessly stuck down.


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Immediate Past President - West Essex Philatelic Society www.wepsonline.org
13 Jul 2012
03:58:11pm

re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

I've done all the blunders that Saleem has done. I have a couple others. When I first started collecting, I put all the mint stamps that I bought at the post office in "magnetic" photo albums. You can imagine what that did to the back of the stamps.

I purchased a lot of sand dunes, eastern block and other wallpaper pictorial CTO's. I don't really consider this a blunder even though they are pretty much worthless. This is what really got me interested in stamp collecting. When I came back to collecting as an adult, I knew what they are and avoided those issues. I still have great memories collecting those issues.

Bob

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"APS - AFDCS - GBCC - USSS - SCC - IPDA"

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PeterG

17 Jul 2012
03:56:04pm

re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

When I was a little kid my grand dad started me collecting. He gave me loads of his old extras, and then he passed before really teaching me . Several years later I was sorting stamps. First into 4 types: Those inscribed post, those inscribed poste... those inscribed posta... and then those with other lettering than ours. But then suddenly a 5th type of inscription occured: Pakke Porto on some huge stamps with a standing polar bear. Me, not old enough to rad asked my parents what they said. Parcel Post was the reply.
I thought about it for a while and concluded the they wouldn´t carry letters and as such they weren´t stamps To the waste basket they went
Several years later when I got a color AFA Danmark catalogue I recognised them instantly Those classic Greenland parcel post stamps are very sought after and not all cheap To this day I still don´t have any

Like
Login to Like
this post

Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
18 Jul 2012
09:02:18am

re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

The Blue Four Skilling


I recently sent a letter to a friend and had used a special block of stamps for the postage on the envelope that I thought would relate to her other interests. A few weeks later she wrote to say that she had received the letter and thought the stamps I had used were quite nice, so she told her daughter and little grand daughter that she was going to save them. Shortly thereafter her grand daughter brought her the stamps that she had been going to save, cut through with a sissor as the child tried to "Save them for Grandma".

I wrote her a further note a part of which tells the tale of the "Norwegian Blue Four Skilling".


".... Dear Phyliss,
I am glad you got the letter I sent and certainly understand the difficulties that a well meaning grand child can create. The stamps themseves are not of any great value and the next time I get to attend one of our stamp club meetings I will replace them and send you an envelope with some similar items."

"Your experience reminds me of an incident that occurred while we were living in New York almost forty years ago. My oldest daughter, Mary, was about three or four and very helpful. I had quite a stamp collection even then and had acquired several early Norwegian stamps. They were from the 1880s and denominated in "Skillings" which was the currency before they changed it to "Ore" around the turn of the century. Mary had, of course, seen me remove stamps from the paper remainders of their envelopes by soaking them in water."

"One of the nicest was a four skilling blue that had been used in 1872 or there abouts and it was the prize of a group of some ten or twelve similar stamps. One evening after arriving home from work I went to the bathroom to do what had to be done and take a shower. As I sat there comtemplating some vacuous thought I spied my treasured four skilling blue on the floor along with several other Norwegian stamps. Before I could react, or act at all, for the matter, and while a gutteral scream was but forming in the best Bosun's mate's tradition in the pit of my lungs, little Mary (Who is still alive I will add lest you become fearful of the outcome of this adventure) entered the room and told me that she had washed some stamps for me that day.
.
I gathered strength by pausing and finally asked, Where did you do that sweetheart?", fearing the answer and knowing that it was already to late to prevent the obvious. "In the bowl" the little angel replied with that helpful smile that protects infants from the mayhem that would be due them were they just a wee bit older."
.
""Here are some of them " she added and I accepted the gift of love with all the grace and class that I could muster. She also looked around and found several more off to the side. So what had been a group of ten or twelve, ( I do not like to dwell on the exact number originally there) became a group of eight that were salvageable and one that was slightly torn and had to be discarded. I remember carefully placing the survivors of their trip on the SS Tidy Bowl to the side to be rewashed and eventually I took a long , long, cold shower."
.
"I still have them and when ever I look at the page where they have resided for the last thirty-seven years I think of this and remind myself to put the damn things away when I am through with them."
.

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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
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sponthetrona2

Keep Postal systems alive, buy stamps and mail often
18 Jul 2012
10:36:01am

re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

I won't say it's the worse blunder but at the time I needed money for a down payment for a house so I sold a MNH perfectly centered attached pair each of the Graf Zepplins. Although the stamps themseles were replaced later, a matched attached pair today would be hard to find.

Image Not Found Image Not Found

Image Not Found Photographed, not scanned

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rgnpcs

18 Jul 2012
04:21:48pm

re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

As I have been collecting stamps since 1929, I have made a few blunders. Kids, and many adults, in the early 1930's did not know that hinging a mint stamp was a no-no, so I hinged every stamps I got, and did do into the mid 1940's when the stamp dealers started to charge more for MNH.
Also I had a friend that used to give me early unaddressed First Day Covers, and I would put in my own address on them in ink. Ouch!
There is a set of stamps from Luxembourg referred to as the Professional People series SC#B65A-B65Q. For years these stamps were not listed in Scott. I had a complete set in MNH, and sold them for a dollar.
One of my other boo boos, was trading off my early baseball cards for some junk stamps. Cards were from the early 1920's to 1952, when I made the swap, and I was 29 at the time. I should have known better. This was probably my worst mistake.
As the old saying goes, "Live & Learn"!
Richaard

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rgnpcs

18 Jul 2012
04:32:15pm

re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

Curios, what did you get for the zepp pairs? What year did you sell them.
They are sure beauties.

Richaard

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Les

18 Jul 2012
04:46:02pm

re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

I'll bet that he sold them for a lot more than they cost today.

Like
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A Service Dog gives a person with a disability independence. Never approach, distract or pet a working dog, especially when (s)he is in harness. Never be afraid to ask questions to the handler (parent).
18 Jul 2012
05:06:10pm

re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

When I was a kid they used to have dealers at the local flea market and I started buying from them (as well as my CTOs in the cereal boxes). Hey, a kid could be in heaven with $0.50 and a boxfull of stamps that cost less than a penny each. Anyway, I remember asking one of the fellas one day how do I put them on paper? I'm Deaf so it was more a guessing game when I talked with them. He was obviously explaining that I needed hinges (he didn't have any there) and I was just not understanding what he was saying. I figured it must be "stick it with...." so someone standing nearby (bless her heart for her intentions) tried to gesture what he was trying to say and after what seemed forever, she pointed to some tape that was on the table. Innocent that I was, thought, ahhh finally, I get it! Yup, I got it alright. Mum's Scotch tape and my nice stamps became friends. Thankfully I only did it for a few years before discovering my big "oops". Luckily too, they were mostly CTOs but I do have a beautiful mint set of Silver Jubilee stamps from 1978 that would be even more beautiful without the Scotch tape on the back!

Kelly

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"Let's find a cure for Still's Disease, Breast Cancer and Canine Addison's Disease. We CAN find a cure and save lives!!"

drkellyfleming.ca
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sponthetrona2

Keep Postal systems alive, buy stamps and mail often
18 Jul 2012
06:39:48pm

re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

I sold the pairs plus a FDC of the $2.60 and some MNH Plate Blocks in 1968 for $12,000. Although values have dropped a lot on these stamps I miss having them around. Perry

Image Not Found

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rgnpcs

18 Jul 2012
11:07:50pm

re: Share your worst philatelic blunder.

Perry,
Looks like you did ok, but I understand your wish of still having them. Sure would have made a nice exhibit page.
Several years ago I sold two sets of singles of the zepps with top & bottom plate numbers. Took a Grand Award at a show when I entered them in an exhibition.
I thought that I might have had a picture, but cannot find one,
Richaard

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