Gem 100 Jumbos
Dear Sir,
I wholeheartedly agree with Nicholas Lombardi that deliberate destruction of philatelic heritage is a sacrilege. That being said, it is easy to see why it happens. It is not new. In fact, long before the advent of graded stamps, one saw many of these “Jumbos” in philatelic auctions. I always assumed that they were made while the stamps were current, and the desecrator simply used the mutilated stamps for postage, recouping his face-value expenditure at a time when the stamps were generally available at face.
That it is also a new phenomenon is reflective of the fact that we live in a material world and have a materialistic hobby. There are not many collectors of large multiples, so a nice block of nine might bring, what, half catalogue, or $315. If that block were damaged in any way, it might bring perhaps a quarter of that, perhaps 80 or so dollars. The fact that this jumbo brought $145 more than the block, or significantly more than that if the remaining stamps were defective is a pretty strong incentive to the materialistic defiler. Carrying the argument further, it would be worthwhile to split up even a complete sheet of perfect stamps in such a way, selling margin pairs, plate blocks, 7 regular pairs, one single, and 9 jumbos, while damaging 40 stamps in the process. What a shame. But the perpetrator is smiling all the way to the bank.
As to his final admonishment to hang onto your large blocks of imperfs (or anything else, for that matter), even if they should become as scarce as hen’s teeth, it is probably ill advice from a financial standpoint—unless we collectors change our collecting habits and multiples become the rage. It hasn’t happened in more than 100 years, so I’m not holding my breath.
Too bad!
Sincerely,
McClellan G. Blair
Dear Sir,
I agree wholeheartedly with the article. I also wanted to point out that the nine stamps the owner started with had a combined retail value of $630, and the one he ended up with sold for $460. Looks like he lost $130. So besides being very wrong, I’d call it very dumb!
Sincerely,
Harold Bailey
Dear Sir,
I could not agree more with Nick’s observations about the “Gem 100 Jumbo” stamp(s) that are being brought to the stamp market lately. I have not had a problem with the Washington-Franklin and earlier stamps receiving a grading certificate but when I see the 3¢ purple commemoratives with a graded certificate selling in the hundreds of dollars, that’s enough for me. Your article about the Imperforate is a great point. If I have a block of 9 of the Scott #314 (or any other of the Imperforate issues) and cut it through the middle of the adjoining stamps, do I get a “jumbo, jumbo 100” certificate? If I cut it so that I barely clip the designs of the outer 8 stamps, do I get a “super jumbo, jumbo 100” certificate so the stamp is worth tens of thousands? Or do I leave it as a simple block of 9 that looks terrific but gets a graded certificate that says something like “F-VF 85 grade?” STOP the madness!
Sincerely,
Terry Scott
Off-sale Stamps Back on Sale
Dear Sir,
The May, 2008 issue of The U.S. Specialist (pp. 221-24) carried my article on the 80¢ Mt. McKinley stamp’s use on recent domestic mail. It reported two sale withdrawals, effective March 31, 2008, given in the USPS sale catalog USA Philatelic, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Spring, 2008). Scheduled to go off-sale were the 80¢ McKinley and the 83¢ Edna Ferber stamp. Now, the Summer, 2008 edition (Vol. 13, No. 2), which I received on April 22, lists both issues for sale without qualification. So it appears that the 80¢ McKinley will be around a little longer, without a specific rate use. And the 83¢ Ferber can be used for the new one-ounce “flats” rate effective May 12, 2008.
Sincerely,
Ronald Blanks
