Are Their Various Classes Of Postally Used Covers??

To me it make seems that a cover post marked and sent during the time the stamp could have been bought from the PO is a truly top class postally used cover.

My question is how do you look on covers where a stamp used say 6 months, a year and 10 years AFTER the last date the stamp could be bought??

Do you have an informal rating system?
Or do you look at all postally used covers of an particluar stamp the same regards or the post marked date?

Regards
Gavin

I, too, have often wondered about this. I get parcels and envelopes from various sources and many of them have stamps on them from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Are these stamps to be accorded the same status as the same stamp used contemporaneously with its sale at the post office. After soaking, it is difficult to tell the difference, although with the latest spray on cancellations, I think that it could be identified.

There are many stamps listed in the catalogs worth more used than mint. So those used have to be certified, but how is this done if there is nothing more than a simple black ink cancel?

My opinion lies within "correct usage"
and the postage used at the current time, dictated by
a particular costing of a special use.
The ability to isolate and identify these stamp uses on cover
can be very profitable, but requires a deal of study.

The dog's breakfast of other stamps used to
bring the franked stamps up to postage rate
that one often seen from stamp dealers still complies
with correct usage, but I would suggest has no interest
to dedicated collectors who will pay a high price
for correct and dedicated use.
If that makes sense :)

In the main, I am using Australian covers as an example.

This issue (ahem!) has been exercising the minds of Australian collectors for quite a while, since a local dealer and collector began writing a series of columns in a local stamp magazine about collecting on cover. His articles are archived on his Web site here: http://www.rap.com.au/vPages.asp?vp...ds%20Columns
and scroll down to Woodchip-free Zone. I'd suggest starting from his earliest columns, where he sets out his philosophy. The columns deal mainly with Australian stamps on cover, but the principles apply generally.

In my own collection, I go for properly commercially postally used, in the proper timeframe, and for a proper purpose.

As an example, the 1931 pictorial set of Charkhari was one of the Dune issues of its day. Sets CTO were dumped on the market for next to nothing, and they're still readily available today for very little. Genuinely postally used examples of these stamps are another matter entirely. I have two covers with these stamps:



and



No prizes for guessing which I prefer

AFAIK, there never was a poste restante service at Charkhari (or any other Indian State), and 8 Annas overpays the local letter rate eight times. Still, the cover does have a genuine postal cancellation, even if it never travelled further than across the post office counter.

The second is a genuine double rate letter, which obviously has travelled through the Charkhari postal system. I treasure it: it's the only example I have of a commercially used cover of these stamps.

I can understand why some dealers etc use old, discount postage. If they're sending me something of low value, or something like an auction catalogue, I don't really mind. But I do get annoyed if they do it with a high value item, where the cost of postage is negligible, and they could have used a current high value stamp. That sort of stamp is always going to be hard to find properly postally used, and in good condition.

Interesting reading.
I like that guys term "primary use".

Just thinking out loud....

To me a cover with stamps postally used in the period when the stamp was sold over the counter could be called a "primary use cover"

Then "secondary use cover" could be used for normal postage after they were withdrawn from sale... ?

and a "tertiary use cover" could be a cover with a out of sale stamp used for creating a collectible... ?

Lots of grey area of course!!

Regards
Gavin

I see a couple of Ozzies replying their... hey guys... if you see this stamp, be it self adhesive or sheet stamp on a postally used cover please grab it for me!



It is a Ducati motorcycle hence making it a part of my Collection of "Any philatelic material that depicts a motorcycle, or part thereof, or name of manufacturer, recognizable as being of ITALIAN ORIGIN."


Regards
Gavin

I think a lot may have to do with the time period involved. In the US, there are strict limits in place now for when a US stamp is withdrawn from sale and post offices are mandated to return unsold inventory to their supervisory offices for destruction. However, that is a "relatively" new policy, as I recall things were different a generation ago.

In the 1970's and 1980's when I was a kid collecting stamps, I remember going to the post office and some accommodating postal clerks actually showed me stamps from the 1950's and 1960's that were still sitting in their folder and I could buy them at face value. Around the same time period, some convenience stores had mechanical postage stamp vending machines where I could buy some of the commemorative stamps from the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's for a bit above face value (i.e. 4 or 5 stamps for a Quarter). In these situations, I bought the stamps, placed what I wanted in my collection and the overage was used for postage. Nothing valuable, but I just wound up using old stamps on current mail. In this situation, the stamps were recently bought (even though they may have been up to 20 years old at the time).

I guess what it comes down to is that postal regulations change over time and what may have been an "over the counter" sale of stamps in the latter half of the 20th century is an entirely different situation than what we have in place today.

I have thousands of those augustanz,
I'll look through my duplicates and see what I have,
If they are up in the attic, forget I mentined it :)

Augustanz, there should be more

Casey Stoner, that boy that looks 12 years old
won his world championship on a Ducati.

Troy Bayliss

Well if you have any postally used covers with that stamp on them then I would be keen to do a swap or buy them outright.
Regards
Gavin