It’s easy to get so focused on the details of an item that something obvious just gets missed entirely. In this case, it wasn’t just the seller, but also all the other bidders on an item that missed it, as I won the item at a completely bargain price.

Listing description:

Battleship Documentary R165 large block — low start price!

Battleship Documentary R165 large block. Mint, OG, in mount. there are 2 small hinge reinforcements on the back. This block is ex-Giacomelli, a specialist in double transfers, and the two stamps labeled on the right with stickers on the front of the mount have double transfers. The upper one is a major DT along the left edge of the stamp that is easy to see with a magnifier. The bottom stamp at the right edge has a minor DT also along the left edge that is visible at the bottom with a magnifier. Nice examples of minor double transfers on a large block with neighboring stamps for comparison. My old catalog (2016) has a $14 CV on a block of 4. I’ll go with my standard low start price. A nice item! I do combine shipping.

So it was a block of 24 (6×4). Per the description, the Scott catalog value was $84 for the block. I won the lot for $65 including shipping and sales tax.

Well, that’s a fairly high percentage of Scott, you might be thinking. Sure, the double transfers are a nice bonus, but not exactly the bargain of the century.

Well, here’s the block in hand…

Have you figured out what the big thing is that everyone missed?

It is actually not Scott # R165 which catalogs $14 per block of 4. Instead, it is Scott # R165p, the hyphen hole perforated 7 version… which catalogs for $170 per block of 4… as hinged.

So the block, instead of a total of $84 catalogue value, has a catalogue value of $1,020 hinged, and 16 of the 24 stamps are never hinged.

While the hyphen hole 7 perfs are not uncommon as multiples on the proprietary battleships (RB), the hyphen-hole documentaries are MUCH less common as blocks.

If anyone here is interested, here are the two stamps with double transfers, with the most prominent diagnostic points highlighted.