Modern Art In America Imperf Press Sheet

Someone mentioned in this forum that the Modern Art in America imperf press sheets will only come in 1x4 format, thus making it only 10k imperf sheets available.

What do y'all think?

You'll find all that info about print quantities etc. if you read the biweekly bulletin: http://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/pb2013.htm
I find them a very good read. The next one is due this Thursday.

I don't think anyone knows how these imperf press sheets will perform in years to come. Personally, I calculate the print quantity for each individual stamp rather than the print quantity of the press sheet. There are some with more than 1 million, and there are others with 10k like the Modern Art in America issue. The next closest was Earthscapes which sells for a premium, but the one with the third lowest print run (Purple Heart Medal) is not doing well at all. And of course, there are popularity & stamp design to consider. Hence, I think the Lunar issue may do well. But we are all in the dark about the potential value of these.
The biggest problem I have is that USPS don't sell individual panes as you have to buy an entire press sheet even if you are only interested in one stamp. This will make it very expensive to own a complete collection of them. Also, when it comes to reselling you're better off cutting up the sheets. Finally, you'll need a lot of space to store them!

To answer your question, yes, I do think they'll go up in value and mainly because of the low print run and the nice designs (there are plenty of stamp collectors that collect art on stamps). This issue will be less popular than the Muscle Cars for sure though (esp. among rednecks :-)).

If I would have the choice to spend approx. $20 on the latest Express mail stamp or an imperf press sheet of the Modern Art in America issue... - well, that's an easy choice for me.
I pretty much stopped collecting the conventional US stamps now as they have literally no chance of gaining in value. But I do collect the imperf press sheets instead, although it stretches my finances!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I already pre-ordered 15 of these. I'm a little OCD you know. :)

Has anyone noticed that the USPS Store has posted incorrect information about these Press Sheets? Although the order number is right, they indicate they are without die cuts in one place and with die cuts in another place. Extremely confusing, especially for those who rely on internet ordering. That's why I always phone in my order to SFS to be certain that these errors do not affect my order:

Has anyone noticed that the Modern Art Press Sheet (without die cuts) has been "quietly" removed from the USPS Store list of stamp offerings for this issue? It seems they sold out even before the stamp has been formally issued.

(The Press Sheets with die cuts are still available, though.)

Looks like it's sold out. Well, I ordered 20... :)

Mystic recently ran an ad for the various imperfs on the back page of Linn's and they had the sold out 4 players baseball panes only $4 higher than the individual players panes. Mystic is hardly shy on pricing, so if they only think a sellout adds $4 per pane, that is hardly a good omen for people who think these things are a good investment.

You are confusing blocks of 4 and panes of 20. And press sheets of 120 are not offered at all.

I found the ad on the back of the Feb 25 issue, and the prices are scandalous, at least for singles. Imperf SINGLES of the 4 players are $1.95 per stamp, or $36 for the pane of 20 (of the same kind) -- these are NOT the se-tenants, just the ordinary imperfs.

The se-tenants imperf BLOCK is offered at $8.95 or about $45 per pane of 20 stamps whose face value is currently $9.20 -- the pane of 20 makes 4 blocks of 4 plus 4 singles. The press sheets of 6 panes are not offered at all. I see press sheets ($54 face value, 120 x 45c) offered in the $240 to $275 range by the average ebay seller. Since the postal rates went up in January, the "face value" of a press sheet went up slightly, it's now $55.20 (120 x 46c).

"I found the ad on the back of the Feb 25 issue, and the prices are scandalous, at least for singles" - Mystic's prices are always high. Pretty sure they want over $1 for a regular non-imperf stamp for the same issues.

Are any of those $240-275 press sheets selling? Asking and selling are two different things.

There just isn't much interest in the whole press sheets - just too big physically and cost wise, especially with a press sheet for every issue. With limited interest comes limited investment potential.

I will let me ebay send me the new listings each day (via Search) and then check up on them when the auction or BIN expires. Will try to have meaningful data in 30 days. If they are "store" listings, then they never expire, so to speak, and it's impossible to track them.

I can tell you that of the 2500 sheets at least 4 will be destroyed by USPS and likely many more. I received my five modern art no die cut sheets yesterday and four were crumpled at the edges during shipping from banging around loose in the shipping tube. I returned them after verifying USPS can replace them. They are not for sale, but a reserve supply is kept back to fix problems like this. They will replace them and ship so they do not become damaged. How many are damaged when received is another topic which I will start elsewhere.