(Bi-Sects) On Cover

(Topic Title corrected ... Thanks ILS)

I'm continuing to look through my collection for interesting things to post.
In this case, Grandma decided to carefully cut three perfectly good stamps in half to get a total postage value of 3 cents.
Of course, she could have just used the stamp on the right, but then that wouldn't be fun, would it?
I like how the cancellation was carefully placed through the bottom of each.

I also wonder what she did with the other halves?
Perhaps she threw them away because they were less than half the size of the original?

That may be worth a pretty penny. Your Grandma had quite an imagination! They are called "bi-sects" and are actually sought after but there is a little grey area here, I bet one of our resident bi-sect experts will help out on this one. I like this a lot. Tank you for sharing this!

That is one of the coolest cover I have seen !

Maybe there were cancels on the other side
of the stamps.:)

Now that is an interesting thought ...

I found another one in my collection, where she did the same thing. However, she miscalculated, and they caught her with a three cent penalty.
Not as good of a cancel, but same idea.

A great and very interesting piece - wouldnt happen today and shouldnt have happened then - a very obliging postal employee - these are not really "authorised" bisects I imagine

Actually, I don't think Grandma ever did anything authorized.
It comes to mind that, later in life, her doctor told her that she should stay away from cigarettes.
Her solution: Take up pipe smoking.
Then, one day when she ran out of pipe tobacco, she found some friendly Navy Cadets at a bar that were willing to take their own cigarettes, break them up, and give them to her to stuff into her pipe so that she could still stick with Doctor's Orders.
She was a fun old lady!

I got a letter from a collector in Boston about
20 years ago. All the stamps on the envelope
had been cut diagonally. I`m not sure if they
were the same stamp or different halves.
I wondered if this was some kind of protest.

Although intentional bisects still properly used so likely a premium. Generally the major high catalog value bisects were for early classics used in period where things were so tight saving that extra 1.5 cents meant something. However Grandma Partime may have been very frugal in the 30's as well.

After the 1850-60's the supply of stamps and postal inventory in general was in very limited supply. Stamps after that are officially allowed to be recognized as sufficient postage. If any got cancelled and sent through the mail system it was out of ignorance of the postal clerk or post master. {{That's why your second cover was "Held for postage"}} Mostly those later bi-sect covers were contrived by collectors and usually on F.D.C.'s. That don't mean they aren't awesome but just not the pricey early bi-sects. I just wanted to clear up that grey area I was talking about in my original reply. Here is a link you may fin interesting on the topic and it covers the later ones as well.

http://alphabetilately.com/b.html

EDIT: Added info

Modern bi-sect? Found this in a mixture I was sorting
back at xmas. Maybe trying to get 29 cent rate.

Both of the Bisect covers are Philatelic and not commercial as they were both sent through the Mail system specifically to create a collectible item. I would think that the value of the covers would be greatly affected by being Philatelic vs. commercial. Nonetheless, fun looking covers.

Yes, I kind of assumed that. However, something to pass down to show, "See what Grandma got away with?"

Those are great, Partime. Your Grandma sounds like quite a lady!

Interesting topic, here is an example of an Australian Bi sect cover commercially used when the standard postage rate increased from 4cents to 5 cents for a period there was a shortage of 1 cent stamps to upgrade to the new postage rate (only a short period of time)this was an accepted way to overcome the problem.
Sydneyboy

Nice clean looking cover sydneyboy - thanks for sharing - wasnt aware that Australia had legitimate bisects - Do you know if this period was the only time that these were allowed?