How to Grade the Condition of Stamps


Stamp collecting is a fun, educational hobby that always provides pleasure.  And it can, at times, be lucrative.  Serious stamp collecting requires a certain amount of knowledge.  This knowledge will allow the collector to build a strong stamp collection, not overpay and know the value of the collection.  A stamp collector should always determine the grade and condition of the stamps in his or her collection.

Stamp catalogs provide basic guidance on the grade and value of stamps, but all collectors should be aware of stamp varieties (almost always much more valuable than the most common version of a stamp) that in many cases can be detected only through a magnifying glass, watermark detector or perforation gauge.  It is therefore critical that collectors examine their stamps with these stamp collecting tools.  But that's not the only purpose of a close examination:  some stamp faults that seriously detract from the value of stamps can only be seen this way. 

Evaluation of condition and stamp grading involves centering, gum condition and cancellations.  Centering describes how well the stamp design is located:  ideal centering occurs when the design is smack in the middle of the stamp, mid-way between the stamp's perforations on all sides. 

Superb stamps feature centering that is as close to perfection as is possible. The margins between the design and perforations are precisely the same in each direction, all the way around the stamp.  The color of these stamps should be fresh and bright and of course no faults, even microscopic, should exist.

Extremely Fine stamps are close to perfection, with well-centered designs.  The color of these stamps should be fresh and bright and of course no faults, even microscopic, should exist.

Very Fine stamps are slightly less well-centered but still balanced.  This is the stamp grade used by many stamp catalogs, including those by Scott, for their stamp values.  The color of these stamps should be fresh and bright and of course no faults, even microscopic, should exist.

Fine, Good and Poor stamps feature increasingly more off-center stamp designs.  In poorly centered stamps the design there may be no margin on one or more sides, with the design entering into the perforations.  No faults should exist in Fine stamps.  Stamps may be graded "Good" or "Poor" because of centering, blurred or very heavy cancels, or the presence of a variety of faults.

Stamp Expertizing Certificates


Stamp collecting has been an extremely popular hobby for several generations - almost since the day the world's first postage stamp was issued, in 1840.  Stamp collecting is fun, educational, and not at all stressful; in fact it can be quite relaxing and rewarding in a laid-back way.  But in addition to having all those qualities, stamp collecting can also, sometimes, be financially rewarding.  It's likely that at least part of the reason stamp collecting is so popular is the stories we all hear about valuable stamps. 

Almost all of us have heard of stamps that are worth thousands of dollars.  In fact, a very few stamps are worth much more than that - a million dollars or more.  Finding one of these stamps is every philatelist's dream. 

Just like many other collectible items, stamps can be counterfeited or forged.  And the great popularity of stamp collecting sadly motivates some bad people to create forged stamps.  Fortunately, we can protect ourselves from these bad people because any stamp can be sent to a stamp expertizing service.  These stamp expertizers carefully evaluate every stamp that is submitted to them and determine whether it is genuine and authentic or a counterfeit or forgery.  They certify the result of their findings by means of an expertizing certificate that they issue.

Stamp expertizing services are especially helpful when a stamp collector is thinking of purchasing an expensive stamp.  If the stamp is submitted and certified as genuine, the sale can go through.  But if the result indicates it's a forgery, the stamp collector can back out and save a great deal of money.

The American Philatelic Society - the APS - runs one of the most sought-after expertizing services in the world, and it has been helping stamp collectors since 1903.  It's called the American Philatelic Expertizing Service - APEX - and it's an official division of the APS.  The process is simple:  just send the stamp to APEX in Pennsylvania, along with their minimal fee.  The stamp is numbered, photographed and examined by a team of up to five expert stamp collectors that are members of the service.  It can take a bit of time to have a stamp expertized, and al the experts on the panel must agree.  If they don't, APEX refunds the fee and declines to give an opinion.  If they do agree, the expert opinion of the panel is set forth on a certificate and send to the owner of the stamp, along with the stamp itself.  If the stamp owner disagrees the stamp can be re-examined within one year. 

APEX opinions are limited to whether a stamp is genuine - they never comment on a stamp's value.  But all items certified as genuine by APEX carry a guarantee - if a collector buys a stamp that's been certified as genuine by APEX but it later is shown to be a fake or misidentified, APEX will pay up to $5,000.  APEX and several other stamp expertizing services have fees that are minimal, and it's an easy way to be sure. 

Your First Stamp Collection

Stamp collecting is fun and it can be rewarding too.  You gain a definite sense of accomplishment when you build a stamp collection, and when your collection gets noticed by other people it makes you feel great. People around the world collect almost everything, including coins, postcards, dolls, toys and even barbed wire, but for some people there is nothing like collecting stamps.

Before you begin a stamp collection you must first decide what kind or type of stamps you want to collect. You can collect any kind of stamps but it might be more fun and rewarding if you focus on collecting a certain type of stamp.  You can choose from a variety of stamp types, countries, years, formats, purpose or condition (mint or used), or you can be a general worldwide stamp collector, including stamps of all types.  But if you want to go the worldwide route, keep in mind that more than 10,000 new stamps are issued every year throughout the world, and a complete collection would be prohibitively expensive.  Collecting the stamps issued by a specific country or on a specific topic is much more realistic, although with any stamp collection there will be stamps that are much too expensive for your budget. 

The easiest stamps to collect are those issued by the country where you live because they are much more accessible.  But you may choose to collect stamps from countries that have some sort of special significance to you. 
You can also collect stamps by topic.  Popular topical stamp collections - sometimes called thematic stamp collections - include stamps featuring birds, ships, trains, airplanes, flowers, space and sports.  But you can pick any topic you want:  one man even collects stamps featuring toilets!  

Stamp collecting is an easy hobby to begin, even if you have no money to spend on it.  Everyone gets mail, often with stamps on it, and you can begin there, because those stamps are free.  You can also ask friends, relatives and acquaintances to save the stamps they receive for your collection.  If you want stamps from another country, try finding a penpal who lives there.  You can exchange letters and stamps at the same time!

If your finances allow you can look for stamps at stamp shops in your area or at online stamp dealers.  Joining a local stamp club will let you learn more about stamps and stamp collections, give you more opportunities to trade stamps and sometimes buy them, too.

Make sure you are properly equipped with basic stamp collecting tools like a stamp album, tongs, hinges or mounts, a perforation gauge, a magnifying glass and a watermark detector.  Never mount your stamps using adhesive tape or glue: they will damage your stamps beyond repair.  Always use stamp tongs to handle your stamps:  no matter how often you wash your hands, there will always be oils which can damage the stamps.  A magnifying glass can help you separate and identify different varieties of stamps that look the same when seen with the naked eye.

No matter what you collect or how you go about it, make sure you enjoy it.  Stamp collecting is, after all, a hobby.

The Universal Postal Union / Union Postale Universelle (the UPU)
     

The Universal Postal Union is an international organization that controls the world's postal system by coordinating postal policies among its member nations.  Each country that's a member of the Universal Postal Union agrees to the same rules for international postal carriage, thereby standardizing postal arrangements.  But before the UPU was established each country had to enter into a separate treaty with each other country in order to regulate international mail to and from that country.

Recognizing that this situation resulted in a hodge-podge of postal rates and confusion, many countries signed the Treaty of Berne to create the "General Postal Union" in 1874.  It quickly revolutionized the processing and delivery of mail throughout the world.  Re-named the Universal Postal Union in 1878, the UPU is now a United Nations agency with its headquarters in Berne, Switzerland.

The UPU ensures that stamps of its member nations are accepted for the entire international route that a piece of mail takes, instead of the previous arrangement where mailers had to affix stamps of every country through which a piece of mail would pass.  It also established a more or less uniform rate to mail a letter anywhere in the world.

The UPU and its uniform policies for mail handling were a great success.  After the United Nations was founded, the Universal Postal Union became one of its agencies.  Any country that's a member of the UN may become a member of the UPU, and other than Andorra, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau, all 192 United Nations member countries are also UPU members.  Vatican City, although not a member of the UN, is also a member of the UPU.

Throughout the years many countries have issued stamps in honor of the UPU, and many of these stamps feature beautiful designs.  Some stamp collectors form topical stamps collections that consist only of these UPU stamps.  They're generally not expensive to collect, so why not try it?

USA New Stamp Issues For 2010 (Tentative Schedule)


The tentative schedule for U.S. stamp subjects to be 

issued in 2010, announced August 6 at  the American 

Philatelic Society's Stampshow in Pittsburgh, includes 

entertainers Katharine Hepburn, Roy Rogers and Kate 

Smith, along with Garfield the cat and other comic strip 

characters.

Here's the tentative schedule, although it's subject to 

change.  Face values will of course depend on the 

applicable postage rates.

January:

• 44-cent Year of the Tiger commemorative and souvenir sheet
• 44-cent Olympic Winter Games commemorative
• Mackinac Bridge in Michigan Priority Mail stamp
• Bixby Creek Bridge in California Express Mail stamp
  
  
  

February:

• Four 44-cent Distinguished Sailors commemoratives (William S. Sims, Arleigh A. Burike, John McCloy and Doris Miller)

April:

• Poet Julia de Burgos commemorative (Literary Arts series)
• Four American Flag stamps showing the flag flying in four seasons
• 10 stamps (five cats and five dogs) titled Animal Rescue: Adopt a Shelter Pet in booklet form
• 
  
  

  Love stamp (purple pansies in a basket)

  
  

May:

• Katharine Hepburn commemorative (Legends of Hollywood series

June:

• Kate Smith commemorative
• Oscar Micheaux commemorative (Black Heritage series)
• Fourth set of 10 Flags of Our Nations coils
• Two Negro League Baseball stamps

July:

• Five Sunday Funnies commemoratives ("Archie," "Beetle Bailey," "Dennis the Menace," "Garfield" and "Calvin and Hobbes")
• Four Cowboys of the Silver Screen commemoratives (William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers)

August: 

• Winslow Homer commemorative (American Treasure series)
  
  

September:

• 10 commemorative stamps featuring abstract expressionists (Hans Hofmann's "The Golden Wall," Adolph Gottlieb's "Romanesque Facade," Mark Rothko's "Orange and Yellow," Arshile Gorky's "The Liver is the Cock's Comb," Clyfford Still's "1948-C," Willem de Kooning's "Asheville," Barnett Newman's "Achilles," Jackson Pollock's "Convergence," Robert Motherwell's "Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 34" and Joan Mitchell's "La Grande Vallee 0")

October:

• 10 Hawaiian rain forest commemoratives (Nature of America series)
• Four Holiday Evergreens (ponderosa pine, eastern red cedar, blue spruce and balsam fir) Christmas stamps
• Madonna and Child Christmas stamp (a detail of "Madonna of the Candelabra" by Raphael)

Possible Additional New Issues:

• 100th anniversary of Boy Scouts of America commemorative
• Definitive stamps featuring illustrations by Laura Stutzman
  
  
  

The History of Stamp Collecting - Part III


This post continues and completes our series on the history of stamp collecting.

The 20th century saw a steady increase in the popularity of stamp collecting, with the number of stamps that were available for collecting positively exploding.  Many of the stamps from the 1910s-1940s are not rare, but they are nonetheless fine examples of design and engraving. 

Although the period between 1840 and 1940 is often called the "Classic Era" of stamps, the period right around 1940 probably represents the peak of the so-called "Golden Age" of stamp collecting, at least in the US.  Franklin D. Roosevelt, an avid stamp collector himself, was President and stamp collecting garnered publicity and prestige through him.  During this period almost every young boy (and many young girls) collected stamps.  They spent many an hour every week happily trading stamps and otherwise working on their stamp collections.  Philatelic periodicals and stamp shops were plentiful, and even ordinary department stores all had stamp departments stocked with stamps and stamp supplies.  I well remember the Gimbels store stamp department and how going there was the highlight of every weekend.

The periods immediately before and after World War II gave birth to a variety of interesting philatelic items - everything from Weimar inflation stamps through Hitler head stamps to stamps from behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.  Some countries that formerly issued stamps went away and became so-called dead countries, while other countries, such as East Germany, sprung up.  The British Empire was seeing its final days but stamps from exotic British colonies were still of very high quality, and seeing them let us have a glimpse of life in those exotic places.

After the war, new stamp printing technologies were developed.  Stamp issuing countries began to realize that they could garner significant income by marketing their stamps directly to collectors.  Collecting mint never hinged stamps became the rage.  Some countries (and pseudo-countries) issued stamps solely for the purpose of selling them to collectors, with no intent to ever be used on the mail.  The number of stamps issued throughout the world hugely increased, with the result that building a comprehensive worldwide collection is now very difficult if not impossible - there are just too many stamps being issued.

Even though the US now produces more than 100 new stamps every year, in today's era we see post offices printing postage labels to be affixed to mail.  Post offices should be selling stamps at the counter for use on the mail, and in truth they do, but they'd rather just print those labels and sell stamps to a few die-hard users and collectors.  But that's not the only strike against the future fate of stamps:  postage also can be printed using peoples' home computers and printers.  

Are stamps becoming irrelevant to the mail?  Perhaps so.  In the future it may well be that the only stamps sold are sold to collectors.  A dire prediction and a bleak thought, because that will likely bring the hobby to a crashing end.  

How to avoid this?  Buy stamps, but use them on your mail in addition to adding them to your collection.  And don't just buy self-adhesive definitive stamps, either - buy some commemorative stamps.  Don't let the post office put those postage labels that they print out onto your mail.  Use stamps whenever possible.  That's the best way to ensure the hobby continues.

A Primer on the History of Stamp Collecting - Part II


As we mentioned yesterday, stamps were one of the main causes of the American Revolution.  Great Britain's Stamp Act of 1765 imposed a tax on the population of the American British colonies without any input from the colonists.  This tax led to one of the most famous rallying cries of the colonists and one of the founding principles of the USA:  "No taxation without representation."  But those types of stamps are different than the postage stamps that most people collect today.

The first government-issued postage stamps were issued by Great Britain in 1840, and they were a hit right from the beginning.  Although many private and local post stamps had been issued by then, Britain's Penny Black and Penny Blue were the first "official" stamps printed by a national postal authority.  Sir Rowland Hill came up with the idea as a means to prepay postage at the expense of the mailer instead of charging the recipient on delivery, but an additional benefit was a standardized rate for all mail carried throughout the country.  His idea caught on quickly and spread throughout the world, with the United States issuing its first postage stamp in 1847. 

Stamp collecting also became popular very quickly, and the wares of stamp dealers began to be in demand.  By the end of the 19th century stamp albums, along with stamp collecting tools such as stamp tongs, stamp hinges, magnifiers and stamp catalogs had come into common use.  Around this same time, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, some of the world's most important stamp sets were issued.  Classic US stamps falling into this category include the Columbian set of 1892, issued in connection with Chicago's Columbian Exposition - the World's Fair that celebrated the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America. Prized for their beautiful engraving and designs, the Columbians were also the first (technically, anyway) commemorative stamps issued by the US.  Other important US stamp sets from this period include the Trans-Mississippi Exposition set and the Pan-American Exposition set.  Far more (in my opinion) than the coveted (and in my opinion highly overpriced) Graf Zeppelin set, when taken together, the Columbians, the Trans-Mississippis and the Pan-Americans represent the pinnacle of US stamps, and I do not believe their quality and beauty will ever be surpassed.

The Universal Postal Union, created in the late 19th century, also significantly impacted stamp collecting.  We'll discuss the UPU more in a couple of days, but for now suffice it to say that the UPU imposed standardized stamp colors for international mail, causing a plethora of new stamps to be issued in order to comply.

Tomorrow we'll add the final post in this short series on the history of stamp collecting.

A Primer on the History of Stamp Collecting - Part I


Stamp collecting has a long and rich history, and few hobbies have enjoyed such enduring popularity.  Although stamp collecting is sometimes called the "hobby of kings," you don't have to be rich to enjoy it.  Many people of somewhat limited means have built beautiful, and above all, rewarding stamp collections.  

Collecting stamps can be the hobby of a lifetime, but if you're anything like me, the more you know about its history, the more you'll enjoy it.  The fact that many famous and important people have been dedicated stamp collectors has probably added much to its appeal.  Kings, queens, United States Presidents, corporate CEOS and people in just about every other profession you can think of have been stamp collectors, and you can share their passion for philately.

Most people collect postage stamps and those types of stamp collections could not exist before 1840, when the world's first government-issued postage stamp - Great Britain's Penny Black - was issued.  However, stamps of other types could be collected before 1840, including collecting tax stamps, revenue stamps, seals and more.  No one knows how many people collected these other types of stamps before 1840, but mankind's predilection to collect just about anything makes me pretty sure that at least some did.  

The Netherlands issued the first tax stamp way back in 1624.  They soon came into popular use throughout Europe, including Great Britain, and were used to indicate prepayment of taxes that were levied by those countries' governments.

Did you know that stamps were one of the main causes of the American Revolution?

Stay tuned for more stamp collecting history tomorrow.

More on Postage Stamp Values (Part II)


Some amount of philatelic knowledge and experience is required before anyone can determine the value of a vintage or modern postage stamp.  Sometimes it's just a matter of looking a stamp up in a stamp catalog, but in many cases stamps that are valuable look almost identical to stamps that have only the minimum value.  They can be so similar that even experienced stamp collectors and stamp dealers must sometimes send a stamp to a stamp expertizing service before they can be sure about the identity and value of a stamp.

There are a few things that anyone who inherits an old stamp collection - or even just a box of loose stamps - should realize. 

Most importantly, know that although there certainly are exceptions, the stamps you inherit probably won't be valuable enough to pay for a new car, put your child through college or buy a new house.  If you start out with this assumption and later find out otherwise, that the stamps do have a great deal of value, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

You should know that no one, whether they're an experienced stamp dealer, stamp collector or anyone else, will be able to tell you the value of your stamps without seeing them.  You should be willing to compensate the person who reviews your stamps, at least in some small way.  They'll spend a lot of time looking at your stamps and paying them something for their time and knowledge is only fair.  A stamp dealer who evaluates your stamps should be looked at in the same way as any other professional who gives informed opinions.

If it turns out that your stamps don't have much value, don't despair.  They just might provide you with a relaxing and challenging new hobby that you can enjoy for years to come.

Postage Stamp Values - Part I


We get several emails every week asking how much a particular stamp is worth.  Sometimes the person doesn't know much about it - not even what country it's from - but others know at least something about the stamp and usually describe it by country, denomination and color.  The person who knows the stamp's specific Scott Catalog number is much more rare.  Many of the people sending these inquiries aren't able to send a scan of the stamp because they don't have a scanner and/or don't know how to send a picture as an email attachment.  Unfortunately, there's just not much we can say about a stamp's value if we don't know which stamp it is and we can't see its condition.  But that's another story.

The value of old postage stamps is a frequent question and will probably never go away.  The question almost always comes up when someone inherits or finds a relative's collection and naturally wants to know if the stamps are worth anything.  The answer, much to many peoples' surprise, is often "probably not a lot."

Valuable vintage stamps are in many peoples' stamp collections, and more of them are found around the world regularly.  But just because a stamp is old doesn't mean it's rare, and it doesn't mean it's valuable.  As a matter of fact, most of the time, it's not. 

If a stamp is quite common, it doesn't matter how old it is - if it's common it won't be rare (obviously) and it won't be valuable.  Not even if it's 150 years old.  In other words, age ALONE is not relevant to the value of a stamp.  The only reason there are more old valuable stamps than modern valuable stamps is because some older stamps are more scarce:  over time stamps can easily be damaged or lost, so fewer of these older stamps are likely to still be around.

Like everything else in the world, the value of any postage stamp is determined by supply and demand.  If a stamp is rare and there is a high demand for it, it will be valuable, whether it is old or not.  But most stamps, even those from more than 100 years ago, were issued in enough numbers that they will never be scarce.  In truth, most valuable stamps are either scarce varieties or stamps that were issued in smaller quantities because of low anticipated demand, such as the high value stamps of many stamp sets.

We'll post more on this important stamp collecting subject tomorrow!

Seven Easy Steps to Soak Kiloware Stamps Effectively and Cheaply


Almost every stamp collector will soak stamps at some point during their stamp collecting "career."  Some collectors soak stamps only once or twice a year, while others do it much more frequently, several times each month and sometimes even more.  Stamps are usually soaked in order to get them off their backing paper (the remains of the covers or postcards the stamps were used to mail), but occasionally it's done to remove stubborn old stamp hinges.  For some collectors the soaking process is just something that has to be done, but for other stamp collectors soaking itself is a pleasure - calm, peaceful, relaxing and full of promise.

Believe it or not, there's a right way and a wrong way to soak kiloware and other stamps.  This means there are certain steps that should be followed by any stamp collector who is soaking stamps.

1.  Select the stamps to soak.

Take a careful look at all the stamps you're considering for soaking.  You won't want to soak anything that's better to save on piece, including special cancellations, hologram stamps and scarce or rare stamps.  Set those items aside and collect them on piece.

You should soak stamps that are on brightly colored paper separately from other stamps.  This is especially true of stamps on red, purple, orange or green paper (like many Christmas card envelopes).    Because these envelope colors tend to bleed into the soaking water, their colors can easily stain stamps that are being soaked.  Set these stamps aside for now - you'll want to soak them separately and very carefully.  Stamps with colored cancellations (especially purple or red) should be treated the same way.

Find any stamps that you recognize as being "unsoakable" stamps (we've discussed this type of stamp a couple of times recently) and set them aside.  The more you soak, the more stamps of this type will become immediately recognizable.  You know the type of stamp we're talking about - they're modern self-adhesive stamps (not all of them, but some) and when you try to soak them it just doesn't work.  Either they won't come off the paper or they turn into a mess when you try to soak them.  Either way, there's no point in soaking them, and if you, they might be destroyed.  So set them aside.  There's not much you can do with them other than saving them on piece.  Many recent Great Britain and US self-adhesive stamps fall into this unsoakable category, but certain stamps from other countries do too.

You should limit the number of stamps to be soaked in any one batch.  Even if you have 20 kg of stamps to soak, there's no need to fill your bathtub with stamps.  In fact, soaking in a huge batch is a big stamp no-no, because if anything bad happens (like fugitive ink from a colored envelope you failed to take out) it could very well happen to all the stamps in that huge batch.  So from the pile you have left (the stamps that will be soaked), pull out a random 50 or 60 or so, a good number for a soaking batch.  


2.  Find a suitable plastic tray or bowl for soaking.

It should be large enough to hold the water and the stamps that will be soaked and provide plenty of room for the water to circulate and the stamps to move about.  We find that a bowl is better because it's deeper and there's less chance of the water overflowing.  It doesn't need to be a good bowl, in fact, find an old one and use it for this purpose.  That way you won't mind when the bowl gets a bit "grummy" from the dissolved stamp adhesive that's left behind in the water.

3.  Soak the stamps.

Put your 50-60 stamps to be soaked into the bottom of the bowl, and add enough lukewarm to warm water to make them freely float.  Be careful about the water temperature, but experiment a bit.  The hotter the water, the faster the adhesive will release, letting the stamps come off their paper.  But the hotter the water, the greater the risk of fugitive ink discoloring other stamps.  With lukewarm water the stamp gum usually begins to dissolve within about 15 or 20 minutes, although some gum types will require much longer baths.

4.  Wait until the stamp gum dissolves in the water.  

While you're waiting, give the stamps a gentle stir with your hand every few minutes.  This stirring allows the water to get to stamps that may be stuck together and other nooks and crannies in the stamp mix.  When the gum dissolves, stamps will start to float off the paper, and others will smoothly slide off the paper with just a little pull with your tongs.  Always use stamp tongs, and always use them very carefully during the soaking process because wet stamps are very fragile and easily torn.  As with the bowl, you may want to use an old set of tongs for soaking stamps, as they will become covered with dissolved gum and will not be suitable for any other purpose without very careful cleaning.

5.  Carefully remove the successfully-soaked stamps from the bowl.

Use your stamp tongs to carefully and one by one pick up all the stamps that are floating off paper and put them into another bowl full of cool, clean water.  This removes traces of gum residue on the stamps.  Some of the stamps won't float free and will need a little assistance.  With your tongs pick up these stamps (also one by one) and gently slide or peel them off the backing paper by first lifting a corner.  These stamps should also be bathed in a bowl of cool, clean water.  Any stamps that don't peel off easily should be put back into the water for some additional soaking time.  If you have some stubborn self-adhesive stamps in the soaking water, you can try adding a few drops of liquid dish soap and make the water a little warmer.  Sometimes that helps release the self-adhesive gum from the stamps.

6.  Dry the stamps.

Several methods can be used to dry stamps that have been soaked.  You can buy "drying books" from commercial stamp suppliers and they work well, but they cost a bit of money.  We always try to keep our costs down and have found a method that works just as well and is almost free, costing only the price of three white paper towels and a piece of waxed paper.  

The first step in drying soaked stamps entails individually picking up stamps (with your tongs) from the cool water and placing them face down on a plain absorbent white paper towel so that none touch each other.  Avoid using newspaper or other paper with print or colors because this can bleed through.  Also avoid using glossy or "slick" paper as this won't absorb the water that's in the wet stamps.  After your stamps are placed face down on the paper towel, place another paper towel on top.  After a few minutes the bottom paper towel will be wet or damp and will stop absorbing water, so carefully move the stamps onto another paper towel to finish the drying process.  The stamps may curl a little as they're drying, but not to worry, you'll be flattening them in the next step.

7.  Flatten the stamps.

When the stamps are dry, individually pick them up with your tongs and put them onto a piece of cardboard that's been covered by a piece of waxed paper and placed on a hard surface.  Once again, make sure that the stamps don't touch each other.  Then find a very heavy book (or even two) such as a telephone book and put the book on top of the stamps.  Then sit back and let everything stay that way for a fair number of hours - at least 12 hours but preferably 24.  Your stamps should then be flat, ready to be put into your stamp albums or otherwise stored.

Stamp Collecting on a Budget - Some Do's and Don'ts


Stamp collectors generally want to acquire as many stamps as possible for their collections, but not being made of money, most of us need a few practical guidelines to keep the costs down.  This post is intended to share a few of the do's and dont's I use to be able to collect stamps while staying within my budget.

To collect stamps on a budget,

Don't:

• Buy unused new issue stamps from the postal administration or a new issues stamp dealer.  This might be the most convenient way to enhance your stamp collection, but it's also the most expensive.  And worst of all, it's too easy - there's no challenge and no "thrill of the hunt" when you buy your stamps this way.  It's much more fun and rewarding to look for the same stamps in used condition, and buying them used is almost always cheaper too.
• Buy single stamps or complete sets from stamp dealers or at stamp auctions unless the stamps are scarce or you need them very badly for your collection because they're key items.  You might think this is bad advice, but this is usually a somewhat expensive way to fill out your stamp collection. 
• Don't visit stamp auction sites such as Stampwants or eBay more than a couple of times per month.   This will help you avoid temptation and reduce impulse, spur-of-the-moment purchases.  
• Pay more than you originally intended.  It's easy to get carried away and pay more than you want, especially with online auctions.  Stick to your guns and don't pay more than you really want to.

Do:

• Buy stamps and other philatelic items in large lots.  Usually the larger, the better.  Stamp lots that include hundreds or thousands of stamps provide hours and hours of fun and generally are very inexpensive.  Even better, buy stamps by weight, in lots measured by ounces, pounds or kilograms.  Because you never know what you will find, there's nothing that will juice you up like buying unsorted on or off paper stamp mixtures, kiloware, old stamp collections or similar stamp lots on a regular basis.  Some of the stamps will be duplicates, but they're good fodder for trading.  There's no cheaper way to buy stamps and build your collection on a budget, because each stamp in a lot like that will probably cost only a tenth or two of a cent.  And you never know, people find valuable vintage stamps and scarce varieties that way all the time.  There's no reason why one of those people can't be you.
• Educate yourself about your stamp collection and the stamps that you're interested in.  This helps to prevent you from overpaying, but it also helps you know that sometimes, a stamp you may think is just "junk" or a duplicate may actually have a lot of value due to being a scarce variety or having a scarce cancellation, precancel or perfin.  This is how the real bargains in large stamp lots are found.

If those of you reading this have additional suggestions about how to collect stamps on a budget, we'd be pleased if you'd share them here by posting a comment.

France Precancel Stamps


Like other precancel stamps, French precancels - or préoblitérés - are stamps that have been cancelled before being affixed to pieces of mail.  Precancel stamps are often used by mass mailers such as advertisers and others conducting direct marketing campaigns because the postal administration usually reduces their price when large quantities are purchased. 

According to Michel, France has issued three different types of precancels, beginning in 1920.  The first two types were overprints with a two line inscription, one of "Postes Paris" and  the other with "Postes France."  Both types have the year printed below.  The third type of French precancel stamp used an overprint of a semicircle with “AFFRANCHts POSTES.”

Bogus Stamps - Topical Cinderella Stamps From Sahara OCC RASD


Sahara OCC R.A.S.D. (officially the République Arabe Saharouie Démocratique – Arab Republic of Western Sahara) is a country that's not a country, and the stamps that it issues aren't official stamps.  That doesn't stop Sahara OCC R.A.S.D., and it's one of the most common sources of modern topical cinderella stamps.  None of them have any postal validity anywhere in the world.  They're probably labels that are issued for propaganda purposes, but they're very attractive.

The purpose of these propaganda labels / cinderella stamps? 

Western Sahara, currently under Moroccan rule, is the former Spanish West Sahara.  The last African colony still waiting for independence, its population objected to a proposal to divide Western Sahara between Morocco and Mauretania.  That plan was put on hold and the area's status is now a matter for the United Nations.  The area's fate is currently unresolved.

Many of Sahara OCC's bogus stamps are beautiful thematic stamps.  The region has issued hundreds of stamps, souvenir sheets and mini-sheets, all waiting to add color and life to topical stamp collections.

Introduction to Collecting ATM stamps, Also Called Vending Machine Stamps, Framas or Variable Rate Stamps


Stamp vending machines existed for a long time, brought into service in Great Britain around 1908.  These machines dispensed coil definitive stamps in 1/2 d or 1d denominations after the insertion of an appropriate coin.  Many countries began to use stamp vending machines of various mechanical and electro-mechanical designs.  But variable denomination ATM stamps were not introduced until the late 1970s and early 1980s.  These vending machines dispensed stamps with variable denominations to match the value of the coin or coins inserted.  

From a philatelic standpoint, these variable denomination stamps are different than the ordinary postage stamps people buy at the post office counter.  They are actually franking labels, but are often called "framas" after the name of the company which pioneered their use.

Many stamp collectors ignore vending machine stamps because they are not typical postage stamps as we all think of that term.  This is a shame, however, for two reasons:  some framas are actually quite lovely, with beautiful colors and attractive designs; and we may not have them to collect in the future.  Several countries, including Australia, have stopped selling framas on the theory that they are not sufficiently in demand.  And on top of that, variable rate stamps, especially those that are printed on thermal paper, are almost self-destructive.

It's entirely possible and perhaps likely that most ATM stamps will be destroyed or damaged beyond salvation within 20 to 50 years.  And some won't last anywhere nearly that long.  The paper they are printed on seems to typically be of very low quality, and the ink used for the denominations easily fades or washes away.

Variable rate stamps dispensed by vending machines have another downside:  most if not all of them use non-soakable adhesive.  No matter how carefully you try to soak them off paper, you just end up with a gooey mess, often in several pieces.  This makes them similar to the unsoakable recent stamps we discussed a few posts ago.  All you can do is collect them on paper.

There's no doubt about it, framas provide some interesting challenges for stamp collectors.  But there are as many ways to collect ATM stamps as there are "regular" postage stamps.  They can be collected by country, geographic region, topic, vending machine type, year, etc.  Most vending machine stamps are inexpensive, although there are high value exceptions.

Try something different. Give your stamp collection a boost by collecting framas.

Local Carriage Stamps - Herm Island Stamps and Lundy Island's Renowned Puffin Stamps

Herm Island and Lundy Island local stamps make a fun addition to a stamp collection and are widely known among stamp collectors.  Here's a bit of history behind these two groups of interesting local carriage stamps.

Herm Island is one of the smallest Channel Islands, located in the English Channel between the United Kingdom and the Normandy coast of France.  The Herm Island Sub-Post Office was closed in 1938 due to insufficient use.  Mail to and from Herm Island now must travel between Herm Island and Guernsey, a much larger Channel Island that has the nearest post office.

A local tenant on Herm, A.G. Jefferies, carried the mail back and forth to Guernsey.  He decided to defray the costs he incurred by issuing a set of local carriage labels - also called local stamps.  This arrangement was fine with Royal Mail as long as the labels did not bear the word "postage."  All mail from Herm was stamped with Herm local stamps (used to pay "postage" from Herm to Guernsey) and also with British stamps (to pay postage from Guernsey to its ultimate destination).

Although Lundy is located between England and Wales in the Bristol Channel and is not one of the Channel Islands, the history behind the stamps of Lundy is similar to that of the stamps of Herm Island.

The Lundy Sub-Post Office was closed in 1927, also for insufficient use, but the mail still had to get between Lundy and the North Devon coast, the location of the nearest Royal Mail post office.  For the first couple of years after its closure, the owner of the island - who colorfully referred to himself as the "King of Lundy" - carried the mail between Lundy and the North Devon mainland without charge.  But in 1939 he decided to offset his expenses by issuing a series of private "postage" labels with denominations expressed in "Puffins," one puffin being of the same value as one British penny.  All mail from Lundy was stamped with Lundy puffin stamps (used to pay "postage" from Lundy to North Devon) and also with British stamps (to pay postage from the mainland to its ultimate destination).

As a side note, M.C. Harman, the so-called King of Lundy, also issued his own coins.  There are two denominations of Lundy coins, with one puffin and half-puffin denominations.  Each has Mr. Harman's bust on the obverse (front) and a puffin on the reverse.  He of course got into trouble with the law for the unauthorized minting of money.

Why Most Stamp Inventory Software is Bad

1.  They're too much work.

First and foremost, I don't want to manually enter the huge amounts of data that nearly all stamp inventory programs require. I'm lazy, and I think it would be nice if my stamp inventory software listed all issued stamps with their basic details already entered. That way all I would have to do is select what I have and provide a few additional details. But that's not the way it is, and I have way too many stamps to enter all that data.

I suppose that the reason behind the need to manually enter so many details has to do with the intellectual property rights of stamp catalog publishers. Catalog numbering systems are heavily protected, as are stamp descriptions and other details. Developers of stamp inventory software would have to pay heavy licensing fees in order to lawfully incorporate that information into their programs. I understand, but it's a shame. 

 

Scott (the de facto catalog for US stamps and also popular in Canada) is the only catalog publisher that I'm aware of that is even willing to sell licenses to use their numbering system. Michel (popular in Europe), Stanley Gibbons (the king of catalogs in Great Britain and Commonwealth countries) and Yvert & Tellier (France) all have online or digital catalog products, but they just don't measure up and they're not available for use in third-party stamp inventory software.

2.  Most of them are ugly and way too complicated.

Most stamp inventory software is ugly, with multiple checkboxes, buttons galore, scrolling in all directions and too many input fields. 

 

Here's a screenshot of EzStamp, one of the best existing stamp inventory programs. I own it, I've used it but even though it's one of the best, I don't like it. I'd rather have my stamp inventory program look good, be simple to use, but be able to be customized too.



What's a Stamp Collector to do?

I don’t use a stamp inventory program. I've tried several but I haven't found one that I like enough to stick with it. A simple Excel spreadsheet is just as easy to use, a whole lot cheaper and much more powerful and flexible.

Don't take my word for it though – some stamp collectors might like one of the available stamp inventory programs just fine. You can try at least some of the out without risk since many have free trial or demo versions available on the publisher's website.

Stamps That Just Won't Soak


What's a stamp collector to do with a bunch of stamps that just won't soak off their paper?  This sorry situation is becoming more and more common, and especially with recent issues of self-adhesive US stamps.  These stamps just won't soak, no matter what a stamp collector tries...cool water, warm water, extra time in the soaking bin, a bit of dish soap liquid added to the water ... they won't come off no matter what.  And the occasional one that does soak ends up a cracked, crinkled mess despite careful treatment.

An editorial in a recent issue of Scotts Stamp Monthly suggests that stamp collectors shouldn't even attempt to soak them, and instead collect these unsoakable stamps on cover.  I don't know about you, but I don't want to collect stamps on cover, or even on piece.  I want my stamps properly soaked off paper and placed neatly in their proper spaces on my stamp album pages.  Obviously that's not possible to do with covers, but it's not possible with stamps on piece, either. 

Stamp albums are designed to house mint stamps and soaked used stamps, not pieces that are much thicker and larger than their soaked equivalents.  Collecting stamps on piece in stock books won't work either - because of their additional thickness any stock book (and stamp albums too) would quickly start bulging.  No matter what you try, collecting these unsoakable stamps will create a strong risk of having a very messing, unaesthetic-looking stamp collection.

I just want to collect stamps.  Not covers, not pieces.  So I just may decide to not collect the unsoakable ones at all, which means I might as well cut off my US stamp collection at 2005 or so, and just focus on finding earlier stamps.  

Does anyone out there have a better solution?

How Stamp Collectors Collect US Precancelled Stamps


The first thing to keep in mind is that with precancels, the precancel marking is much more important than the stamp itself.  As always, precancel stamp collectors diligently try to find stamps that are free of faults and well-centered, but if nothing better is available then damaged or imperfectly-centered stamps will do until a better quality replacement is available.

Many precancel stamp collectors arrange their stamps in alphabetical order, going by the city and state of the precancel.  If a precancel collection is large it can be split into two sections, one for Bureau precancels and the other for local precancels, again arranged in alphabetical order.

Precancel stamp collectors get a lot of bang for their buck.  Most precancels are pretty inexpensive, but there are some rare and pricey exceptions among the local precancel stamps.  The Precancel Stamps Society produces two comprehensive precancel catalogs, one for the Bureau precancels and the other for locals. 

United States Precancel Stamps - a Basic Primer

A few months ago I wrote a general introduction to US precancel stamps. Since US precancels are an interesting topic and a very popular stamp collecting specialty, I thought it might be helpful to revisit the topic and go into a bit more detail about these fascinating and very collectible stamps.

As a refresher, a precancelled stamp is any postage stamp, piece of stamped postal stationery or revenue stamp that has been cancelled before being affixed on a cover or parcel, or before being deposited at the post office for mailing.  Precancels allow the mailed item to bypass normal post office canceling, thereby expediting the mailing process, but their use is restricted to permitted mailers.  The original basic design of all precancel stamps features city and state names inside overprinted horizontal lines or bars.

Since the 1970’s the USPS has produced “lines only” precancels (sometimes called National precancels), using lines or bars but with no information identifying a city or state.  Since these lines only precancels were generic they allowed the same precancelled stamps to be used throughout the country.

All US precancels up to the 1986 8.3 cent Ambulance Transportation Coil stamp have these overprinted horizontal lines or bars across the stamp.  Later precancels do not have these horizontal lines or bars.  Current US precancelled stamps use printed inscriptions such as “Bulk Rate”, “Non-Profit”, etc. that are incorporated into the stamp's design.  Stamp collectors differ on whether these stamps should be counted as true precancels or not.

There are two basic types of the traditional United States precancel stamps:

1.  Bureau precancels, which were printed and precancelled by the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, DC.
2)  Local (city) precancels, which were normally precancelled in the city or town in which they were intended to be used.


Bureau precancels

Bureau precancels were printed when the Post Office Department felt that large orders of precancels could be produced more inexpensively by the Bureau than through the alternative of hiring smaller local printers.  They were ordered andprinted in large bulk lots of at least 500,000 sheet stamps or 250,000 coil stamps.  Bureau precancel overprints were only used on specific definitive stamps and stamp sets.

Bureau precancels (other than the National precancels) always use single lines (never double lines or bars) above and below the names of the city and state.  Several definitive stamps that were normally produced with tagging have untagged Bureau precancel "varieties" - the untagged versions being known to exist only as Bureau precancels.


Local (city) precancels

Smaller orders for precancelled stamps were printed locally using either electroplates or precancel devices such as rubber stamps.  Unlike Bureau precancels, which appear on only specific definitive stamps and stamp sets, local precancels potentially exist on virtually any US stamps.  Many are fairly easy to find but some are quite rare, with only a few examples known to exist. 

There are several main types of local precancels, although there are thousands (if not more) of varieties. 

1.  Typeset and hand-stamped precancels. 

These are easy to identify because they lack any uniform design.  The precancel markings themselves range in quality from very good to pretty crude.

2.  Single Line Electro (SLE) precancels, produced by local post offices using Electroplates.

3.  Double Line Electro (DLE) precancels, produced by by local post offices using Electroplates.

4.  Dated precancels, produced on denominations greater than 6 cents. 

In 1938, the Post Office Department began requiring all precancels with denominations over 6 cents to bear the mailer's initials and the month of use.  Designed to prevent re-use of precancels, the most common dated precancels are MW (Montgomery Ward) and SRC (Sears Roebuck & Company). 


Tomorrow's post here on the Wholesale Postage Stamp Spotlight Blog will talk about how to collect US precancels.  Stay tuned!

United Nations Postage Stamps


The United Nations is a loose organization of more than 100 countries that issues its own stamps.  It's the world's only non-postal organization that is allowed to issue postage stamps.  Reflecting its multi-national nature, UN stamps are issued in three different currencies;  the US Dollar, Swiss Francs and the Euro.  But even though many are denominated in US Dollars, UN stamps cannot be purchased in any US post office.  The only way to buy United Nations stamps in the US is at the UN Headquarters in New York City, through the mail or online, or through stamp dealers.  Oddly enough, letters and parcels using UN stamps that are denominated in US currency are valid for postage throughout the United States as long as they're mailed from the UN's New York Headquarters.

UN stamps are beautifully designed and printed.  Many of their subjects relate to social issues, including environmental issues, endangered animals, AIDS awareness and world peace.  Other topics of UN stamps include art and museums, landscapes around the world, UNESCO World Heritage Sites and the flags of member nations. 

UN stamp collections are colorful, pretty inexpensive and easy to begin.

Self-Stick Stamps (Self-Adhesive Stamps)


Until very recently, almost all stamps printed from every country throughout the world came with adhesive gum on the back.  These traditional adhesive stamps are easy to lick or otherwise moisten, but the gum that's been used on stamps hasn't always been of the highest quality.  Throughout the years gum has been made from various plant products such as cornstarch, gum Arabic, sweet potatoes and sugar, and sometimes stamps fell off letters. 

The United States Post Office tried various experiments to improve the "stickiness" of the stamp gum used on United States stamps, inluding trying a special "summer gum" that was intended to resist high humidity and a special "winter gum" that was intended to resist cracking in cold, dry winter air.

The small South Pacific kingdom of Tonga came to the rescue.  Although the source was unlikely, being such a small and undeveloped country, the solution was brilliant.  Tonga printed the world's first self-adhesive stamps in the 1960s, including stamps that were appropriately shaped like bananas.  These stamps were so unusual, both for their novel self-sticking ability and their die-cut shapes, that they became a big hit with stamp collectors around the globe.  Since then, many countries have joined Tonga in printing self-adhesive stamps.  Peel-and-stick stamps are now the most common type of US stamps.

Perfins - Stamps with Perforated Initials (get it?)


Company and government employees throughout the world have a long history of pilfering office supplies from their employers.  It's probably been happening for hundreds if not thousands of years, and it's probably still happening today.
Theft of employer-owned stamps has always been popular because the thieves could then use them as "free" postage on their personal mail.  But theft of company-owned stamps was a particularly common practice in the 1800s, because stamps were also sometimes accepted as payment for small purchases.  CEOs throughout the world shook their heads, trying to think of something they could do to curb or reduce this practice.

Clever British executives came up with the idea to stock stamps that are commonly known as "perfins" - an abbreviation for "perforated initials" - as a way of indicating that their companies (and not their employees) bought and owned those stamps.  Perfins utilize small perforations right in the face of the stamps to make a set of initials identified with their rightful corporate owners.  If perfin stamps were used by employees on their personal mail or to make small purchases they were immediately recognizable as being stolen property.

Perfins were first authorized for use by Great Britain in 1868.  It took 40 more years for the light to dawn in the USA, and perfin stamps were not introduced here until 1908.  You don't see anywhere near as many now as in the old days, but perfin collections make a nice specialty stamp collection.

The Kansas and Nebraska Overprint Stamps


The Roaring Twenties were a prosperous period in United States history, but the country's prohibition of alcohol and the speakeasies and organized crime that came with it maade for some interesting times.  Criminals like “Machine Gun” Kelly and “Pretty Boy” Floyd loved to rob post offices and mail shipments, and they created such a mess of the postal system that the federal government was forced to take somewhat extreme measures to deter them. 

The Kansas and Nebraska overprint stamps were first produced in 1929.  Designed to deter theft and the use of stolen stamps, they were overprinted with an abbreviation of one of those state's names and could be legally purchased only within that state.  Although they could be used for postage anywhere in the United States, the theory was that a sudden widespread use of transported "out-of-state" stamps would alert postal inspectors to potentially criminal use.

The theory remained only that - in practice, the Kansas-Nebraska overprints did little to deter postal theft and the practice of overprinting stamps for that purpose was soon abandoned.  In fact, the Kansas-Nebraska overprints actually inspired increased illegal activity - counterfeiters began overprinting ordinary 1920s US stamps with falsified "Kans." and "Nebr." overprints and selling them to stamp collectors as the genuine article.  Most of the genuine Kansas-Nebraska overprints have a much higher catalog value than the un-overprinted stamps that were used to produce them. 

Some interesting stamp history, eh?  A somewhat-good idea that backfired.

Joint Stamp Issues

What are joint stamp issues, you might ask.

According to the Joint Stamp Issues website, "Joint stamp issues are stamps released by two or more postal administrations at the occasion of a common event or anniversary and that are characterized either by a common design or the same date of issue or both." Joint issues typically have the same first day of issue and their design is often similar or identical, except for the identification of the country and the stamps' face value.

Joint Stamp Issues (jointstampissues.net) has produced a catalog of these stamps to aid stamp collectors.

Many countries throughout the world have produced joint stamp issues with other countries, and collecting joint issues can be interesting and educational for stamp collectors.

Collecting Perfins


What are perfins, you might ask.

The word "perfin" is an abbreviation for "perforated initials," and the definition perfectly describes what perfin stamps are: stamps that have the initials of various companies and governmental bodies perforated right into the stamp.

Perfins came into use as a means for the companies and government offices to prevent theft and pilfering by employees. They are generally collected either in alphabetical order or by industry, such as railroad company perfins or bank perfins.

Collecting perfins can be a fascinating stamp collecting sub-specialty, and they're normally pretty inexpensive.

Types of Stamp Cancellations & Postmarks: Part II


What in the world is a "favor cancel?" And how is a favor cancel different from a philatelic usage, since they're both for stamp collecting purposes?

Favor Cancels:

Favor cancels are applied by post office works at the specific request of a stamp collector. The cover or stamps that are favor canceled are never mailed. Favor canceled stamps are different from CTO stamps in two ways, even though neither type is ever used in the mail: The difference is intent. The post office sells the stamps intending that they be used in the mailstream. The stamp collector intentionally asks for the cancellation, never intending the stamps or cover to actually be mailed. The post office cancels the stamps or cover as "a favor."

Many First Day Covers (FDCs) fall into the favor cancel classification.

Philatelic Usages:

Philatelic usages result when someone mails an envelope intending that the recipient receives a collectible stamp, group of stamps or a specific collectible stamp usage. Although the mailer's decision of which specific stamps are used to mail the envelope revolves around stamp collecting rather than just the delivery of a mailpiece, unlike favor cancels and many FDCs, philatelic usages are in fact mailed. People sending mail with philatelic usages are usually stamp collectors, friends or relatives of a stamp collector, or stamp dealers. Used stamps from some tiny island countries would probably never be seen by a collector were it not for philatelic usages.

Types of Stamp Cancellations & Postmarks: Part I


Precancels vs. Cancelled-to-Order (CTO) stamps:

Some stamp collectors may be a bit unclear about the difference between these two types of cancelled stamps, so we thought we'd give a bit of information about both of them. The key difference is that precanceled stamps are actually used on the mail.

Precancels:

Precanceled stamps are stamps that are cancelled before they're used on the mail. We know this might not make much sense, since stamps normally are cancelled after the mail they're on arrives at the post office for processing. But precancels were used in order to make mail processing faster - since the stamps were already canceled, the canceling process at the post office was bypassed.

Precancels were applied in one of two ways, either printed on the stamp or handstamped using a rubber stamp. In the US, precancels were printed by the federal government (usually called Bureau precancels, after the Bureau of Printing and Engraving), printed locally by local post offices, or handstamped at local post offices (not surprisingly, these latter two types are called local precancels). In the US and Canada, precancelled stamps were used for first class mail, parcel post and bulk mail. Some larger companies used them as a substitute for perfins - a security device to stop their employees from using the stamps for their personal mail or to sell. Precancels were generally used in other countries to mail newspapers.

Thousands of different precancels and varieties exist, and collecting precancelled stamps is both challenging and rewarding. Catalogs and lists of town precancelled stamps are readily available.


Canceled-to-Order (CTO) Stamps:

CTO stamps have been canceled by the issuing country's postal authority before their sale and are usually sold to stamp dealers for a reduced price. The stamp dealers then sell them to stamp collectors, often passing on their savings in the form of reduced prices. CTO stamps are not valid for postal use. They generally still have their full original gum, and the cancellations are almost always very neat and clear; often just a corner of the stamp is canceled so that the stamp design is not impacted. Many people collect CTO stamps because of their lower cost, and in fact the catalog prices for the stamps of some countries is for canceled-to-order stamps rather than postally used (which have a higher catalog value and cost more).

Many beautiful topical stamps are mainly available in CTO form. Don't turn your nose up at them, because they can be a way to inexpensively build a beautiful stamp collection.