Baseball Players Imperf

I agree. Not to mention the Bill Picket error sheet.

Intentional varieties, such as imperforate stamps that look like their perforated counterparts and are usually issued in very small quantities.

250000-350000 is not a small quantity

Also, other egregiously exploitative issues such as stamps sold for far more than face value

No. Available for their face value
stamps purposefully issued in artificially small quantities

No

or only against advance orders,

No, 5 of 6 press sheets still available after issue date

stamps awarded only to a select audience such as a philatelic bureau's standing order customers,

No, half the population shops on the internet.


or stamps sold only in conjunction with other products.

No, I only bought the imperf press sheets

All of these kinds of items are usually controlled issues and/or are intended for speculation. These items normally will be included in footnotes.

Bottom line. Sheets are 100-120 stamps. That's not excessive. They are freely available, except for one. Someone at USPS probably Accidentally created a scarcity, when they intention was to create a product with other attributes. If the press sheets were getting used as posters by interior designers, it is probably better off without die cut for long term structural integrity.

I see no valid reason for these not to be listed. They are perfectly valid for postage and readily available to the majority of the population as of today. Strangest thing to me is, if issued in error it would at least get a scott designation. Since it is an intentional post office product, they are going to deprive it?

re: san_onofre_collection: I agree with all your points. Also it was available to 100% of the population since one could call the toll free number to order.

I think the main point of listing or not must go to the integrity of the catalog. It is so simple to me, just look at the looney tune products imperfs. There is absolutely no way Scott can get out of listing the imperf stamps eventually, with major Scott numbers - OR delete the looney tunes.

Has Scott every deleted anything before?

Yes. Not often, but they do occasionally delete something when an error or some update or clarifying information is found.

For example my 2011 Scott Specialized Catalog of US Stamps notes that they deleted postal card item UX50c, as it was later determined to be a "kiss print" and not a true double impression.

This is misleading. You had to buy a whole sheet, so, in reality, there were only 2500 units available for sale.

I'm curious is SG or Michel will list these. Do they offer monthly updates the way Scott does?

Apastuszak - to answer your original question - the way to tell single stamps cut out from the 4 players sheets from singles cut from the individual players sheets is by looking at the back - the text on the 4 players version is different than the text on the individual players.

I don't understand how Scott could have come up with the catalog values LPMiller saw in Linn's since they haven't seen how the market is developing for these things. I also don't understand how they can fail to include a block of 4 or a pane of 20 since that seems to be how most people are collecting the 4 players version (or singles and pairs for the individual players version). They are simply listing them as if they were just like the past press sheets where only the gutter pieces or the full sheet were what made them different from what you could get from a normal pane. They seem to just be on autopilot on this.

Just noticed that a complete MLB All-Star imperf press sheet of all four players sold for $329 on ebay. Somebody made a handsome profit from that one. That's just slightly over 600% of their initial investment of $54. Flat-out ridiculous! It will be interesting to see if the sheets hold their value or whether they'll just be a "flash in the pan" like Facebook's stock. Only time will tell.

If this is any indicator, bids of $350 have already been received for one at this link ... along with a claim that their last one sold for $595:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MLB-Major-L...em4abc13d805

And there are other ebay listings for these Press Sheets at a BIN price of $489 (no bids).