US Scott 900 - You Pick The Cancel

True. Yet this poll did what I hoped it would do: Get a representation of how the stamp collecting community judges stamps (and in a situation where the value of the stamp itself played no role). To some centering is key, to some the type and placement of the cancel, to some minimal cancellation, etc. I guess I find this sort of thing to be quite fascinating. Might be the latent anthropologist in me. :)

While a lot of people are picking the just barely cancelled, I figure if you're going to do that, just get a mint one, why bother with a cancel if it's not prominent?

Cephus - I personally keep both a mint album and a used album. I like to have clean examples in the used album, preferably without the details of the face obscured. As I mentioned earlier, I do also keep fancy cancels on vario pages.

I agree with Cephus, if one is collecting used stamps than the cancel is part of the stamp. I really don't see the reason for collecting "barely used" stamps instead of a nice CDS or slogan, which are not "fancy cancels". There were 20th century fancy cancels which were mostly used in the 20's and 30's which are a different story.

Purely personal preference. Some find used stamps far more affordable, but would still like to maintain as "clean" of an album as possible. The definition of that is what's subjective. Whether that means a light cancel, SON bullseye, fancy cancel, circular date, or any other cancel would fall completely at the discretion of each collector.

If the Red Cross cancel had better perfs, it would have gotten my vote. Instead I chose the 'barely canceled'.

Looks like the second one is the winner! Of course numbers 3 and 5 will also stay in my collection. I am not sure there is anything wrong with the perfs of number 5 (other than several of the round perf holey papers are still stuck in the perf holes). There must be a philatelic term for that sort of thing.