USPS Uncut Press Sheet Summary

I spent some time collating all the info about the USPS uncut press sheets (current & future issues) - I know it's a tad small, but I hope you can read it:

There are several important things worth noting:
Total uncut press sheet print quantity doesn't mean a thing unless you take into account how many different stamp designs there are per pane and how many panes are in one uncut press sheet. Take the MLB All-Stars mixed design and the Earthscape issues as an example - both are 2500 press sheets, the former has 6 panes per sheet, the latter 9 (you can already pre-order this at USPS). The former contains 4 different designs in a pane of 20, the latter 15 in a pane of 15. This means there are 75k strips or blocks of 4 MLB All-Stars, whereas there are only 22.5k of each Earthscape stamp as these are all different designs. If you add the individual MLB All-Stars uncut press sheets, then there are 375k imperf. stamps of each design - approx. 16.7x the print quantity of the Earthscape issue. Now which should command a premium in future? Of course, this won't just depend on the print quantity. You can also say there are only 15k MLB All-Stars mixed design panes vs. 22.5k of the Earthscapes - which makes the MLB All-Stars look rarer...
One thing is for sure, the Holy Family won't be rare - 1.3M imperf. stamps!
Regarding these issues appearing in a catalog or not - Michel will for sure add these. They should get listed right next to the perforated stamp and have a subletter B (imperf.) with A being the perf. issue. This is how they have handled this in the past (remember Hungary used to issue a lot of imperf. stamps in the past - they got the B and the same catalog number as the perf. issue).

A lot depends not only on statistical figures but supply and demand. The MLB All Star stamps have a wider audience than just stamp collectors, as there are baseball fans who would be more apt to acquire these for either collecting or possibly framing for room decor, etc. There will almost certainly be lesser demand for the Santa & Sleigh and Holy Family issues, even though they will be printed in larger quantities.

What has been mentioned in other forums is that the USPS has not (and I don't know whether they ever will) release final figures of actual sales of Press Sheets. If they print a limited edition of 2500 or so per issue, but only sell 1000 or so for a relatively unpopular issue, with the remainders being destroyed, there's no way collectors have to know what the true quantities on the secondary market may really be.

[edit] I also note that your spreadsheet is referencing the USS Constitution issue with a quantity of 3500 Press Sheets. In addition, there will be 1000 Press Sheets WITH DIE CUTS that haven't been included in your calculations (unless you are referring to NO DIE CUT examples only.) In this particular instance, there is less quantity of the die cut examples than the ones without the die cuts. Of course, one can argue that there is no difference between regularly cut panes and the Press Sheets with die cuts, but if one wanted to clearly identify the variety, cross gutter cut pairs could be created.

As has been seen, Scott refuses to assign catalog numbers to these stamps, which I think is a good thing.

As a collector, I will continue to ignore this stupidity.

Yes, I forgot to clarify that my list only contains press sheets without die-cuts.

You can ignore them as you like, but collectors are willing to pay a premium for these (at least for the MLB issue so far). The problem is that unless you sit down and do a bit of math it's difficult to figure out how many of each design and pane there are. It's not like coins where a mintage is relatively easy to figure out and the fact that coins do not come in panes or as a setanant strip of four! If you collect stamps by the pane, then the Purple Heart is worth getting as there are only 6k of them due to the small size of the uncut press sheet.

What I dislike the most though is that USPS ships every pane separately. If you order 10 you'll get 10 rolls. They are a pain to store...

My MLB math worked out a little different. Maximum 2500 imperf press sheets. Then 15000 imperf panes of 20. Each pane of 20 yields FOUR blocks of four plus ONE set of singles (which will be in the form of two se-tenant pairs). Therefore, 60000 imperf blocks (of four different designs), ignoring the singles.

If 25% of owners choose to keep the pane of 20 intact, that reduces the effective supply of imperf blocks of four down to 45000. Really not very many to meet worldwide demand for those collectors who must have one of everything.

And I wish they would simply call them imperforates, and forget this "without die cuts" nonsense.

My table says "total strips or blocks of 4 different designs", and there are 4 (corner) blocks of 4 and a strip of 4 in each of the MLB sheets. Maybe I should have said "combined total of strips and/or blocks of 4". Personally, I wouldn't differentiate between blocks or strips of 4 - they are setanant which is all that matters. Given the obsession with corner blocks, one could even argue that a strip of 4 will be rare one day, given that every sheets yields 4 blocks but only 1 strip... :)

Has anyone thought about the interesting phenomenon that will occur with the Christmas issues (both secular and religious themes) with no die cut press sheets? The stamps will only be available in convertible booklets of 20, suggesting that the no die cut Press Sheets will be double-sided with stamps on each side, which would make it rather difficult to collect and/or display since the stamps will be on both sides of the Press Sheets.

All I know is I will never collect these things... Although I might buy a sheet to use on my mail.

Yes, I thought about that, too. But the Civil War issues are similar - stamps on both sides. But these uncut press sheets were perforated. I'm not even sure it's possible to cut out a block of four or a single of the two upcoming Christmas issues without destroying the stamp on the other side!

"Has anyone thought about the interesting phenomenon that will occur with the Christmas issues (both secular and religious themes) with no die cut press sheets? The stamps will only be available in convertible booklets of 20, suggesting that the no die cut Press Sheets will be double-sided with stamps on each side, which would make it rather difficult to collect and/or display since the stamps will be on both sides of the Press Sheets."

WT - how is this any different than any normal double sided die cut convertible booklet pane?

The double-sided booklet pane isn't any different (I don't think). I'm just not sure the USPS has issued any previous Uncut Press Sheets (with no die cuts) before when booklet panes were involved. If one chose to cut apart these Press Sheets, then you would have stamps on both sides and no way to really display them properly, if they can even be cut evenly (assuming the stamps on the front and back of the Press Sheets are perfectly aligned.)

Just another reason why these Press Sheets are so disliked by stamp collectors.

By the way, USPS has just posted what the $90 Christmas (Santa & Sleigh) Press Sheet (without die cuts) will look like:




I don't understand why many would be interested in collecting a Press Sheet of this size or type ... but everyone has different collecting interests, I guess.

More information is at this link:

https://store.usps.com/store/browse...tPressSheets

WT - yes, this is the first press sheet of a double sided booklet. Was just trying to point out that regular double sided booklets have the same display issues.
And I agree the 1x10 format is awkward.

Besides the the print quantity, you also have to look for the topic.
Baseball is a popular sport and people collect sports memorabilia.
Therefore demand is higher than any other issue

I had ebay send me "search" results for a month now. In the past two weeks, there has been only one Press Sheet listed ($289), unless I have missed some keywords. I begin to think that huge numbers have been cut up to make panes of twenty.

"DMSStamps" seems to be one of the big players.

These sheets won't go anywhere until they are sold out. I only checked sales for the Earthscape issue and quite a few individual imperf. panes have been sold. The truth though is that the hysteric interest in the baseball issue has succumbed to common sense... I just feel sorry for those who paid $500+ for a $54 sheet.

I just noticed that the Earthscapes uncut press sheet (imperf) is not listed on the usps website anymore. I assume this means it's sold out.