Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
1. Can I assume that if I have a block of stamps with a full (not partial) cancel, but fully gummed, that this is a CTO cancel?
Here's an example; would you consider this a CTO cancel? This is part of a larger pane and this cancel actually covers four stamps.
2. Should I value a CTO canceled stamp the same as a used or unused stamp? Should I take the lower of the two as the catalogue value or something lower?
Thanks.
Peter
Login to Like
this post
10:10:03am
Peter
A fully gummed stamp with a cancel should be considered a CTO.
Most of the world consider CTOs perfectly acceptable collectables. After all, what is the difference between a CTO and a mint stamp which was produced for and sold to collectors without ever "stepping foot" in its purported home. For example, how many stamps per year are actually used by the 56 residents of the Pitcairn Islands, the 30 residents of South Georgia, or the residents of other miniscule entities which issue so many stamps such as St. Vincent, Anguilla, etc.
Scott often values used stamps in as CTOs and states that issues with genuine cancels sell for more; at other times used values are for postally used only. Where there is a history of CTOs, there are usually notes indicating whether the values are for CTOs or genuine cancels.
Login to Like
this post
The stamp pictured in your post are cto. In Scott's Catalog, there is a note that says: Cancelled sets of new issues have long been sold by the government. Values in the second ('used') column are for these canceled-to-order stamps. Postally used stamps are worth more. The cancel used to cto the stamps are usually regular cancels and the date of issue. I will post some cto stamps from Russia after I scan some.
Login to Like
this post
Top stamp was issued on November 24, 1989 Scott#5833-36
Bottom one issued April 6, 1991. See how the cto cancels are the issue dates of the respective stamps.
Login to Like
this post
Thanks Bobby and John.
Now I wonder: Maybe we should coin a term "FDICTO" (first day of issue CTO) to describe actual dated stamps such as what John showed.
Cheers,
Peter
Login to Like
this post
I believe the cancels used on ctos are either printed as the stamps are printed or the stamps are canceled later.
Login to Like
this post
02:46:16pm
What is the essence of philately ?
In my mind it is the study in some way of the various postal systems, rates and routes and the labels that are used to indicate payment of the fee charged for the service.
Collecting "Jam Jar Labels" may be interesting just as collecting banana label can be fascinating, but neither is really a part of philately.
That in no way implies that people can not or should not collect labels or barbed wire strands or matchbox covers if that is pleasurable to them and gives their lives meaning. But it is the mixing and the way countries have generated so many Jam Jar Labels that were never capable of postal use that at times seems so financially abusive.
Login to Like
this post
Some CTO cancels are quite valuable. There has been a surge of interest in the Australian kangaroo stamps with CTOs.
Login to Like
this post
Many stamps that are commonly available as CTOs are difficult to find in postally used condition, and mint copies may be prohibitively expensive. I don't hesitate to buy CTOs if they fit into my collections, primarily because it is normally the subject of the design that's of interest to me rather than the stamp's postal provenance. In fact, they often look better than badly cancelled postally used copies.
The cancellations of many CTOs are not cancellations at all, but imprints, made at the time the stamps are produced to look like postal cancellations. I understand that some postal administrations cancel surplus stamps with real cancellations and sell them to the packet trade. One form of "CTO" is the "Favour Cancelled" stamp: a collector buys mint stamps and asks to have them cancelled. I got sucked in by a dealer several years ago who was offering a complete used set of the 1992 U.S. "Columbian" issue with CDS cancellations. When the stamps arrived, I was surprised to see that they were "CTOs" — the dealer had just bought mint stamps and had them cancelled at the post office. He refused to return my money, saying that the stamps were "used" as advertised.
During the "Inflation Period" in Germany following the First World War, postal workers sold favour cancelled stamps by the boatload. Once the gum was removed, they looked just like postally used stamps. Scott warns that only an expert can determine whether these stamps were actually used on mail.
Bob
Login to Like
this post
I specialize in Panama and do my best to pick up stamps on cover that are otherwise obtainable only in CTO.
Login to Like
this post
04:34:42am
" .... One form of "CTO" is the "Favour Cancelled" stamp: a collector buys mint stamps and asks to have them cancelled. I got sucked in by a dealer several years ago who was offering a complete used set of the 1992 U.S. "Columbian" issue with CDS cancellations. When the stamps arrived, I was surprised to see that they were "CTOs" — the dealer had just bought mint stamps and had them cancelled at the post office. He refused to return my money, saying that the stamps were "used" as advertised. ...."
A similar incident occurred when I bought a "used" set of that presidential series of the mid'80s. They were favor cancelled and then separated from the four sheetlets. They all had the original gum and when laid out in order the perfectly centered quadrent cancellations all matched up. I just set them aside and gradually replaced then over several years with nicely cancelled postally used examples that I soaked off paper myself. I think I eventually managed a full set for the US Album and I never ordered anything else from that dealer.
Login to Like
this post
08:29:06am
I can understand having stamps with no intrinsic value favor canceled or canceled to order, but what I am having difficulty getting my head around is why anyone would pay 49¢ for a US stamp and have it canceled, without using it for its intended purpose, thus making it worth 10¢ or less. And the example above relating to the Columbian SS where several dollars was converted into 1/2 or less of the original value really doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
Login to Like
this post
A friend once asked me to mail him an envelope with assorted local postage on it from each place I visited on a long trip. I dutifully did that but didn't realize when I requested that each be hand canceled, each of the three post office I visited applied philatelic cancels! He wasn't pleased as he wanted postal cancels but hey, he didn't specify and I didn't know they would do that.
Peter
Login to Like
this post
bobby1948 said, "what I am having difficulty getting my head around is why anyone would pay 49¢ for a US stamp and have it canceled, without using it for its intended purpose, thus making it worth 10¢ or less…."
When I ordered those Columbian commemoratives, I was just getting back into collecting after giving it up in my early 20s. I had never been anything more than the "complete novice" in my collecting, and only knew that CDS cancellations were preferred by some collectors over "wavy line" cancellations. In fact, I still believe that a used stamp with a sock-on-the-nose CDS cancellation trumps a mint stamp any time. I've always been puzzled why dealers and catalogues don't charge more for "perfect" SON CDS-cancelled stamps. In any event, I probably paid more than face value for those stamps, so the dealer was happy.
On several occasions since then, I have paid well over catalogue value for used CDS-cancelled stamps, and have never regretted that expense. Here's a recent purchase:
I paid a dollar for it at a club auction, less than catalogue but with an ordinary cancel I wouldn't have bid at all since I already had a decent copy. I think that the seller, who wrote the description, is correct: it's one in a million strikes. I doubt that anyone could intentionally make such a strike.
Bob
Login to Like
this post
Decades ago when I spent several summers living in Germany with my grandparents I was shocked when I saw people go into the post office, buy stamps, stick them on pieces of paper and have the clerk cancel them. I asked my uncle about that. He is a stamp collector, and he said that's how many collect the stamps.
Login to Like
this post
...for "michael78651:
If that shocked you decades go, you must be purchasing "Valium"
by the case lot in today's world.
John Derry
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
Shocked, yes, but I was much younger then. Years of therapy have permitted me to discuss this now.
2 Members
like this post.
Login to Like.
"Decades ago when I spent several summers living in Germany with my grandparents I was shocked when I saw people go into the post office, buy stamps, stick them on pieces of paper and have the clerk cancel them. I asked my uncle about that. He is a stamp collector, and he said that's how many collect the stamps."
Maybe I'm missing something...
Why was that shocking? Just because the person collected neither mint nor postally used? I have seen this in European collections before, usually sets applied to an envelope and favor canceled or better, mailed to the collectors home. Is there really a difference between the two? Seems like a more personal way to collect to me than the alternatives.
Login to Like
this post
It was shocking in that I was still just a kid who would go to the post office when one of my parents needed stamps. I would spend part of my 50 cents a week allowance to buy new stamps, if any had come out. When I was at the post office in Germany, I saw a couple of teenagers buy several stamps, lick them, put them on paper and have the clerk cancel them. Just never saw something like that. When my uncle told me that's how many collected their stamps, I just said, "Okay, whatever."
Login to Like
this post
Ah...I missed the part about you being a kid...
I remember being shocked (maybe more like disappointed) when I discovered my Harris Statesman didn't have spaces for all those African and Eastern European CTOs I acquired in various packets. I just couldn't understand it and thought it could be solved by simply getting supplements. It never occurred to me there were more stamps being issued than could possibly be housed in an album suitable for a kid's budget.
Login to Like
this post
09:38:56am
I have two questions about Cancelled to Order (CTO) cancels.
1. Can I assume that if I have a block of stamps with a full (not partial) cancel, but fully gummed, that this is a CTO cancel?
Here's an example; would you consider this a CTO cancel? This is part of a larger pane and this cancel actually covers four stamps.
2. Should I value a CTO canceled stamp the same as a used or unused stamp? Should I take the lower of the two as the catalogue value or something lower?
Thanks.
Peter
Login to Like
this post
They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -Benjamin Franklin
04 Apr 2014
10:10:03am
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
Peter
A fully gummed stamp with a cancel should be considered a CTO.
Most of the world consider CTOs perfectly acceptable collectables. After all, what is the difference between a CTO and a mint stamp which was produced for and sold to collectors without ever "stepping foot" in its purported home. For example, how many stamps per year are actually used by the 56 residents of the Pitcairn Islands, the 30 residents of South Georgia, or the residents of other miniscule entities which issue so many stamps such as St. Vincent, Anguilla, etc.
Scott often values used stamps in as CTOs and states that issues with genuine cancels sell for more; at other times used values are for postally used only. Where there is a history of CTOs, there are usually notes indicating whether the values are for CTOs or genuine cancels.
Login to Like
this post
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
The stamp pictured in your post are cto. In Scott's Catalog, there is a note that says: Cancelled sets of new issues have long been sold by the government. Values in the second ('used') column are for these canceled-to-order stamps. Postally used stamps are worth more. The cancel used to cto the stamps are usually regular cancels and the date of issue. I will post some cto stamps from Russia after I scan some.
Login to Like
this post
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
Top stamp was issued on November 24, 1989 Scott#5833-36
Bottom one issued April 6, 1991. See how the cto cancels are the issue dates of the respective stamps.
Login to Like
this post
11:10:16am
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
Thanks Bobby and John.
Now I wonder: Maybe we should coin a term "FDICTO" (first day of issue CTO) to describe actual dated stamps such as what John showed.
Cheers,
Peter
Login to Like
this post
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
I believe the cancels used on ctos are either printed as the stamps are printed or the stamps are canceled later.
Login to Like
this post
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
04 Apr 2014
02:46:16pm
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
What is the essence of philately ?
In my mind it is the study in some way of the various postal systems, rates and routes and the labels that are used to indicate payment of the fee charged for the service.
Collecting "Jam Jar Labels" may be interesting just as collecting banana label can be fascinating, but neither is really a part of philately.
That in no way implies that people can not or should not collect labels or barbed wire strands or matchbox covers if that is pleasurable to them and gives their lives meaning. But it is the mixing and the way countries have generated so many Jam Jar Labels that were never capable of postal use that at times seems so financially abusive.
Login to Like
this post
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
Some CTO cancels are quite valuable. There has been a surge of interest in the Australian kangaroo stamps with CTOs.
Login to Like
this post
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
Many stamps that are commonly available as CTOs are difficult to find in postally used condition, and mint copies may be prohibitively expensive. I don't hesitate to buy CTOs if they fit into my collections, primarily because it is normally the subject of the design that's of interest to me rather than the stamp's postal provenance. In fact, they often look better than badly cancelled postally used copies.
The cancellations of many CTOs are not cancellations at all, but imprints, made at the time the stamps are produced to look like postal cancellations. I understand that some postal administrations cancel surplus stamps with real cancellations and sell them to the packet trade. One form of "CTO" is the "Favour Cancelled" stamp: a collector buys mint stamps and asks to have them cancelled. I got sucked in by a dealer several years ago who was offering a complete used set of the 1992 U.S. "Columbian" issue with CDS cancellations. When the stamps arrived, I was surprised to see that they were "CTOs" — the dealer had just bought mint stamps and had them cancelled at the post office. He refused to return my money, saying that the stamps were "used" as advertised.
During the "Inflation Period" in Germany following the First World War, postal workers sold favour cancelled stamps by the boatload. Once the gum was removed, they looked just like postally used stamps. Scott warns that only an expert can determine whether these stamps were actually used on mail.
Bob
Login to Like
this post
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
I specialize in Panama and do my best to pick up stamps on cover that are otherwise obtainable only in CTO.
Login to Like
this post
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
05 Apr 2014
04:34:42am
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
" .... One form of "CTO" is the "Favour Cancelled" stamp: a collector buys mint stamps and asks to have them cancelled. I got sucked in by a dealer several years ago who was offering a complete used set of the 1992 U.S. "Columbian" issue with CDS cancellations. When the stamps arrived, I was surprised to see that they were "CTOs" — the dealer had just bought mint stamps and had them cancelled at the post office. He refused to return my money, saying that the stamps were "used" as advertised. ...."
A similar incident occurred when I bought a "used" set of that presidential series of the mid'80s. They were favor cancelled and then separated from the four sheetlets. They all had the original gum and when laid out in order the perfectly centered quadrent cancellations all matched up. I just set them aside and gradually replaced then over several years with nicely cancelled postally used examples that I soaked off paper myself. I think I eventually managed a full set for the US Album and I never ordered anything else from that dealer.
Login to Like
this post
They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -Benjamin Franklin
05 Apr 2014
08:29:06am
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
I can understand having stamps with no intrinsic value favor canceled or canceled to order, but what I am having difficulty getting my head around is why anyone would pay 49¢ for a US stamp and have it canceled, without using it for its intended purpose, thus making it worth 10¢ or less. And the example above relating to the Columbian SS where several dollars was converted into 1/2 or less of the original value really doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
Login to Like
this post
10:04:44am
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
A friend once asked me to mail him an envelope with assorted local postage on it from each place I visited on a long trip. I dutifully did that but didn't realize when I requested that each be hand canceled, each of the three post office I visited applied philatelic cancels! He wasn't pleased as he wanted postal cancels but hey, he didn't specify and I didn't know they would do that.
Peter
Login to Like
this post
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
bobby1948 said, "what I am having difficulty getting my head around is why anyone would pay 49¢ for a US stamp and have it canceled, without using it for its intended purpose, thus making it worth 10¢ or less…."
When I ordered those Columbian commemoratives, I was just getting back into collecting after giving it up in my early 20s. I had never been anything more than the "complete novice" in my collecting, and only knew that CDS cancellations were preferred by some collectors over "wavy line" cancellations. In fact, I still believe that a used stamp with a sock-on-the-nose CDS cancellation trumps a mint stamp any time. I've always been puzzled why dealers and catalogues don't charge more for "perfect" SON CDS-cancelled stamps. In any event, I probably paid more than face value for those stamps, so the dealer was happy.
On several occasions since then, I have paid well over catalogue value for used CDS-cancelled stamps, and have never regretted that expense. Here's a recent purchase:
I paid a dollar for it at a club auction, less than catalogue but with an ordinary cancel I wouldn't have bid at all since I already had a decent copy. I think that the seller, who wrote the description, is correct: it's one in a million strikes. I doubt that anyone could intentionally make such a strike.
Bob
Login to Like
this post
08:09:49pm
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
Decades ago when I spent several summers living in Germany with my grandparents I was shocked when I saw people go into the post office, buy stamps, stick them on pieces of paper and have the clerk cancel them. I asked my uncle about that. He is a stamp collector, and he said that's how many collect the stamps.
Login to Like
this post
The past is a foreign country, they do things different there.
05 Apr 2014
09:16:18pm
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
...for "michael78651:
If that shocked you decades go, you must be purchasing "Valium"
by the case lot in today's world.
John Derry
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
11:18:30pm
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
Shocked, yes, but I was much younger then. Years of therapy have permitted me to discuss this now.
2 Members
like this post.
Login to Like.
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
"Decades ago when I spent several summers living in Germany with my grandparents I was shocked when I saw people go into the post office, buy stamps, stick them on pieces of paper and have the clerk cancel them. I asked my uncle about that. He is a stamp collector, and he said that's how many collect the stamps."
Maybe I'm missing something...
Why was that shocking? Just because the person collected neither mint nor postally used? I have seen this in European collections before, usually sets applied to an envelope and favor canceled or better, mailed to the collectors home. Is there really a difference between the two? Seems like a more personal way to collect to me than the alternatives.
Login to Like
this post
09:03:11pm
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
It was shocking in that I was still just a kid who would go to the post office when one of my parents needed stamps. I would spend part of my 50 cents a week allowance to buy new stamps, if any had come out. When I was at the post office in Germany, I saw a couple of teenagers buy several stamps, lick them, put them on paper and have the clerk cancel them. Just never saw something like that. When my uncle told me that's how many collected their stamps, I just said, "Okay, whatever."
Login to Like
this post
re: Identifying a CTO cancel
Ah...I missed the part about you being a kid...
I remember being shocked (maybe more like disappointed) when I discovered my Harris Statesman didn't have spaces for all those African and Eastern European CTOs I acquired in various packets. I just couldn't understand it and thought it could be solved by simply getting supplements. It never occurred to me there were more stamps being issued than could possibly be housed in an album suitable for a kid's budget.
Login to Like
this post