File this under “Yes, I know it’s pricey, but I just HAD to have it!” I already have several examples of R5b with major double transfer (T5), but this is the first one I have ever seen where the R5b is imperforate vertically rather than horizontally. As with all of the pert perforates that can be found imperforate in both directions, the examples that are imperforate vertically are far more scarce than the examples imperforate horizontally. Add to that the…
Too bad. It would have been a very interesting piece. Also, it looks as if there was another stamp to the immediate left.
This is the first use of this particular stamp that I have ever seen in person, and searches of SAN and other auction sites only turn up 3 or 4 examples on document. I spotted it on eBay with about 24 hours left to go and it only had 1 bid at $5.99. The seller was unaware of the significance of the stamps, so there were no indicators in either the auction title or the listing. I was hopeful I…
This one had me doing a facepalm… for myself, the seller, and everyone else on eBay at the time this auction was going on. I was going through all my unfiled revenue “stuff” tonight, looking for 1st issue silk papers to add to my site, and as what usually happens as I’m pawing through piles of stuff, I come across a few items that I don’t ever remember purchasing. The picture below is a small portion of a giant 2ft…
Sometimes when I find revenue-related ephemera, I just have to buy it for the “neato” factor. Item #1. I wish I had seen these when the seller first started listing them, as I might have gotten the complete box intact, but by the time I saw the listing, several pairs of the tins had already been sold. I did, however, did end up with the outer containing box, which no one else got. These are very fragile. At some point…
In the world of cancel collecting, frequently the stamp that the cancel is on doesn’t factor into the overall scarcity or value. Take the R22c below. On its face, nothing that exceptional about the stamp itself, other than being a nice green shade of the fugitive violet ink. In this case, the cancel makes ALL the difference in the world. The stamp itself catalogs for $7.50. When the stamp appeared on eBay earlier this week with a $90.00 Buy-It-Now, I…
Before I get into the topic at hand, first let me preface my comments with: I fully realize that professional grading really isn’t widely accepted in revenue collecting circles; this was more of an exercise in curiosity, and When discussing the stamps shown below, I am concentrating on the margins only and not on other potential aspects of grading such as soundness, color, paper, etc. There appears to me to be somewhat of an illogical disconnect in the manner that…