Press Sheets Of Major League Baseball All-Stars W/O Die Cuts

Some time ago, with my blood pressure approaching the boiling point, I started a thread concerning the Major League All-Stars issue to be relased in July. My complaint centered around the fact that not only would there be one pane of 20 honoring all four ball players (Stargell, Doby, Dimaggio and Williams), but four other 20-stamp panes were to be issued with just one of the players on it. Information seemed to suggest that these "special" panes would be released in the city most closely associated with the ball player. For example, the all-Dimaggio pane would be released in New York. It appeared as though collectors distant from those cities would have severe difficulty acquiring them. A number of responses from several of you assuaged my fears to some degree by suggesting that these "special" panes could probably be purchased through Stamp Fulfillment. Okay, fine, we'll see if that works, but now there might be an even more enormous problem. Per Linn's June 11, there is a possibility that the Postal Service may be producing press sheets "without die cuts" of these five different panes. Each press sheet would have six panes of 20 stamps for a total cost of $54, and of course for all five press sheets it's $270. I'm guessing that since these stamps will have no diecuts that they are being marketed primarily as collector items with very few ever actually intended for postal use. Now to the problem of humble collectors like most of us. Our post offices obviously won't have the press sheets. For many reasons including financial, I understand that. Furthermore I can't imagine that they will have the five individual imperforated panes either. And I can simply forget about getting even a single or plate blocks of these imperforate varieties from my either of the post offices in my city. I would imagine that the press sheets will probably be available from Stamp Fulfillment; however, I seriously doubt that they'll be busting the press sheets apart to provide each of the five panes to collectors. If they even do that much, it will still cost $45. All in all, this could prove to be a difficult and expensive venture to get each variety of this issue. I hope that once again someone out there can convince me that the picture isn't quite this bleak. Look forward to hearing from you all.

lpmiller, that is very frustrating!

Maybe now is a good time to stop collecting mint U.S. and focus on something else!

spanishmoss, had that very conversation with another collector yesterday. It's not the individual post offices; it's the Postal Service just making it too hard.

lp, please keep us posted about what happens with the baseball stamps.

The USPS Store has just posted the various formats of Major League Baseball All-Star Stamps and will allow for pre-orders to be made beginning immediately:

https://store.usps.com/store/promo/...goryProducts

Further news release information on the MLB issue. Pre-orders of individual player stamps (in limited edition) will receive priority filling by the USPS SFS beginning on the day of issue, but orders will be accepted through August 31, 2012, even if it means that an additional printing of the stamps will become warranted.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us...y-2012-05-31

wt1, so the situation is just about as bad as I described it. It appears that the only way for collectors to get all five of the imperf blocks (short of buying $270 worth of the press sheets) is to purchase them from stamp dealers at inflated prices. I wouldn't be surprised to see them go for double their face value. What an absolute ripoff! Reminds me of the Farley Follies debacle of the '30s. It's very sad when the Postal Service completely disregards the small-time collector in an effort to simply appease the "moneyed" collectors.

The USPS got to be way too troublesome and expensive for me, so I divorced them! I don't collect US stamps newer than 2000; I've substituted email for mailed mail; I use UPS for packages, and I pay all my bills online.

The mailman still shows up at my house with mail from those who are still married to the outfit, but at least I'm not enabling them anymore!

I'm very curious about one aspect of these five imperf press sheets. Is there any other instance or previous precedent for the US Postal Service or the old Post Office Department to sell a variety of stamp in no other format than press sheets? There are of course probably close to a hundred cases where a particular stamp was unavailable as just a single and had to be purchased as a pane, but this case with the Major League All-Stars imperf press sheets may be unique. Although I'm not as experienced a collector as many of you, I seriously doubt that this has ever been done in the past. If this is the case than the Postal Service is making a philatelic first for US stamps - a rather nefarious first. Now if I'm incorrect on this, please enlighten me.

Sounds like a group of people need to get together and buy a sheet and then simply cut it up as needed to minimize costs.

I do agree that this is getting way out of hand. Between the need to buy an insane amount of coil stamps and now this, it appears the USPS is really doing it's best to alienate stamp collectors.

So, from what I gather, we're going to have an imperforate se-tenant of 4 stamps, as well as 4 individual imperforates to collect.

So, my question is, if you get the imperforate se-tenant sheet, and cut yourself a block of 4, and then cut out each individual stamp. how is anyone going to be able to tell the difference between that and actually cutting a stamp off the imperforate sheet of individual issues?

Just called Philatelic Fulfillment. You can pay the $2.00 custom cutting fee and get a pane of 20 of uncut sheet. The sheet would give me 4 se-tenants, and 4 stamps I can cut out as individuals, in place of buying uncut sheets of the other four stamps. Unless you can tell me there is something physically different between the stamps in the se-tenant press sheet and the individual press sheet, I see no reason to buy anything other than the se-tenant press sheet and cut as needed.

But that's just me. Plate block collectors are totally screwed.

apastuszak, yeah, I get your drift on this. Unfortunately right now there is no way to tell if there will be very slight differences in each of these versions of stamps. For example, there could be microprinting differences between the press sheet with all four players on it and the ones with the individual players in which case having the se-tenant blocks and singles as you described wouldn't work. I seriously doubt, if there are differences, that they'll be announced ahead of the issue date. Now we could work around this by having you, me, and three others each order a different pane through Stamp Fulfillment. That would have us covering all the bases (an unintended baseball analogy!). I'll get back with you on my plans, but would like to purchase one of those se-tenant blocks if you order the pane with all four ballplayers on it. I don't think you can lose on purchasing that pane as only 1000 of the press sheets of the four players will be printed. So you would have one of 6000 possible panes.

I, you have one se-tenant block.

I'm just glad we can pay the cutting fee and get a pane of 20, and not have to buy the whole sheet.

apastuszak, do you have a contact phone number for Philatelic Fulfillment? Thanks a bunch for the block. Since you're having to pay to have the pane cut, let me know what the total cost is.

1-800-782-6724 I believe is the number.

I need to go through what I still need and place and order. I'll let you know what it comes to.

If there is no alteration to the stamps via microprinting, I wonder if they'll even get unique Scott catalog numbers.

Just need to make sure I cut the se-tenants out nice and straight.

Hold on, apastuszak, before you place your order! That's the number I called for Stamp Fulfillment. After a somewhat lengthy explanation to the young lady, she told me that the pane that was for sale was the perforated version and that they weren't cutting the imperf press sheets.