“Carnage” Revisited

Dear Sir,

Nicholas A. Lombardi’s broadside, “Please Stop the Carnage!” the April, 2008 issue cover story, regarding the senseless slaughter of eight imperf stamps to manufacture one “GEM-100J,” really struck a nerve with me.  It’s like killing elephants to get their tusks so ivory things can be made!  It’s just plain wrong.  It’s the willful, deliberate butchering of our beautiful, defenseless objects of affection, which we philatelists have volunteered to safeguard.

I refuse to buy, sell, or trade these gauche atrocities.  They are an acute embarrassment, source of shame, and a black eye for the grading movement – a movement I otherwise vehemently support – and an affront to the very hobby we all love so much.

It would be wonderful if USSS lobbied PSE and The PF, on behalf of its membership of like-minded members, to stop immediately the practice of awarding grades to stamps that have obviously been manufactured at the expense of other stamps.  Should the PSE and The PF not agree, at that juncture it seems to me that we ought to give serious consideration to calling on our membership, and indeed all U.S. collectors, to boycott the purchase of stamps such as imperf 100Js that have been wantonly fabricated by annihilating other stamps in order to achieve high grades.

Sincerely,
Dave Hull