OK Think I Am Crazy, But What A Feeling On An Auction..maybe

Hello All,

I bid on a lot of used stamps the other day just for the fun of it because I thought I saw what might be a 65 in the pile of mess and plus it was cheap and wanted some other regular cheap stamps to compare and look for EFO and precancels.



Here is the picture from the listing:







Looking at this crazy mass of mess I knew I'd have a chance on the ten dollar max bid I put in and ended up winning for a little over 6 bucks. Now for the craziness:

I have not had time to do anything but separate out the WW material from the US material and I also picked out the ones I knew were bank notes, or older etc. There are also some very interesting item in the WW, but we will get to those later. In all there are just over 800 stamps so that makes the deal under a penny a stamp...again I am lost on this...

I will be posting some finds from this unique lot in the next couple days once I get a chance to get serious about looking through it and id-ing some of these.

Now, I first mentioned the buy because of one little 65 I thought I saw, well I open the nice package of stamps an low and behold there is an entire glassine envelope of the 3 cent 65 variety. I decided just a few minutes ago to grab one out because I noticed a grill and it looked bigger than my newly acquired 94 and here is what we have:

Is this really a used 85c ? Or am I totally messing this one up? I measured: 11 X 14 mm, check. I counted 14 by 17 points, check. Fake? I find it hard to believe this one a fake from this seller as there is no mention of anything in particular about the collection of stamps, but I could be wrong. Or maybe someone got to it before him? Help!










And I know I have to be wrong since I have been learning and do not know near enough, but I think there is a chance there are three to five "pink" issues in the package. Will get to those later. The only issue with this lot is that there are a lot of damaged stamps, but I think I am still quite happy paying a penny, or less for the above stamp and the one to follow.


Now this one was a big surprise as well as I was nearly done getting the WW out of the mix when this little puppy showed up in the last ten stamps. I know she ain't in great shape, but she appears MNH and to be a 63b ? Dark Blue? I do not own a copy of any of these issues so have nothing to compare it to, but looked darker to me then a regular blue. Any ideas on this one? Would you pay a penny?

Then again I still have that "fake" ringing in my head, but considering condition and no mention by the seller to earn more money it makes me think the seller really had no idea.









Please excuse the cat hair in the scans... she was wanting some loving regardless of what I was doing.


Please let me know what you all think about these and I have more to come from this lot in the following days. Probably not as exciting as this, but fun for sure. There are a couple strange precancels and more of these 65s? to go through, and tons of A44s, A45s, A46s, and a couple used 144s (got a question on color on these). I love a good grab bag of searching and studying.

Thanks for your time all.

Wow quite impressive for 10.00! I'll give you 20...lol

great deal - keep the pix coming!

Your first stamp, the 3¢ Washington has a very well defined grill measuring on my count 17 X 14 points making it an "E" Grill,which just about paid for the entire lot in that 1 stamp.

i think we boughtfrom the same seller :p
My package with 150 stamps came in today and I am sorting them out as we wpeak.
I paid $4,52 (shipping to belgium included).

The 85C also has 14x17 points (13-14x17-18 points for Z grill stamps. If you are positive on the 11x14 mm, I think It would be worth getting Bill Weiss to check it for you. However, it is quite easy to be off a mm when measuring grills. An E grill is not worth the cost of having it checked by Mr Weiss. As for pink issues, it is highly unlikely to have just one let alone 3 or more. The ones that look pink are probably just faded 65s. The 63 MNH looks nice in spite of the toning, gum issues and bad crease. Colors are very difficult to confirm from scans but it does not look like a dark blue issue to me. All in all, you got more than your money's worth with this purchase. Congratulations.

I Love Stamps.. hmmmm let me think about it.. thanks for stopping by.

Chasa I hope to get to more from this lot in the coming days and I am sure I will need more help so pictures will be a coming. Thanks.

Stallzer you may be right, but on the first three measurements I got the above mm combination. I am going to have to remeasure and remeasure again once I get back home from work as I will be heading out the door soon. Lots like this one are so much fun even if you find a twenty cent variety of a common stamp. And being in this less than a year makes me know I am guessing a lot with the little I know even when using catalogues and online sources. One of the main reasons I love SCF. Thanks for your suggestion.


Koen maybe, but this was the only stamp related item the seller had listed at the time everything else was antiques and figurines. Good hunting. Thanks.

Quigngt thank you for your observations. I knew that finding a "pink" is highly unlikely and as you mention probably just faded, but fun to hope for just that one. Considering some of the stamps condition it sure could be possible. Yet, there sure appears to be some different shades here I have not seen in real life before so once I get some scans we can all have a little fun teaching me something.

As mentioned before I am headed to work and will remeasure once I get home to verify I didn't goof the first couple of times, which is always likely. Here's hoping I measured correctly. Ha.

And thank you for the color on the second one, so we got a damaged(poor condition) 63. Ill take it as I probably could never buy a mnh "good" copy.

Thanks again all. More hopefully to come.

It looks heavy and you do not mention postage, or did I just miss it?
How much does it cost to post something that size?

If the size is close, you have to look at the orientation of the peaks of the pyramids to determine if a stamp has a "Z" grill. The little peaks MUST be horizontal for it to be a Z grill. That's the determining factor. At first blush, it appears that the peaks on your 3c stamp are vertical, so no Z for you.

For more on grills, you might want to refer to this site: http://www.jamesdire.net/grill.html
C.

X Silver Spin, I bought this lot off ebay and the shipping was free from the seller from California. And actually those stamps do not weigh all that much.

Chipg, thank you for the link. I really like the information. I have not returned to that particular stamp yet, but will visit it again over the weekend with new eyes.

Here is part of the group of "65s" that came in this lot as well. I know some are not 65s as there are a couple different sized grills on a few of these.

Anyone see in possible pink in any of these? I know scans are not good for this, but doesn't hurt to ask

I really love the cancellations on these even if they are all not in too great of condition. I really cannot complain.

I have not got into id-ing these yet so any hints, or ideas would be great. I think I am getting hooked on this particular issue.

More to come from this lot soon. Have a few more I really like; especially since I was not expecting much from this one.

Okay, last two from this lot for the night.

Interesting (to me anyway) precancels.

The Lodi, California I have never seen before and I have also never seen a precancel design like this one. Or maybe it is not a precancel? THis one is used with some faults. The perfs on this one are 10.7, which I found very strange as well.



The Burlingame, California is another one I have never seen. This one is MNH. This one is perf 12.

Any ideas on numbers?

That Burlingame has a PSS# 236 precancel.
The Lodi one is not list in the PSS Catalog. It's an interesting one for sure

sirruspoe,
Even without weight it would have been expensive in Wales because width and thickness is levied by the postal service here.

Great group of pictures and stamps. I love it and I love to see treasures in the very affordable mixes. Keep those pictures rolling!

X Silver Spin I am not at home at the moment (supposed to be working) but I think it was around three dollars for shipping.

Thanks jhlovell. I am having fun with this group. I should be able to post some more interesting stuff up either later today or at least over the weekend.

I'm still awaiting the US experts on those 3 cent colors and cancels. :) I need to do some id-ing and grill measuring on those.

Okay, I am playing around here trying to still id the first stamp posted in this thread. There is debate on the issue of the size of the grill, so I attempted to get a scan of this. (This is no easy task. Someone needs to make an app for this )

As you can see I got close, but the lines are still just a hair off, but if we move it over that little space wouldn't we have a fourteen mm side? That would make this an 11 X 14 which is supposed to be the "Z" grill, but then again we have Chipg's issue with the peaks being horizontal, or vertical which would seem maybe to say otherwise and make this an "E" grill, but then we have funny sized "E" grill. Or is it a 13.5 mm?

This is so much fun, but frustrating as well (in a good way). I just want to know the number to catalogue this baby regardless of worth..