Riverboats SC 3091-3095B

Does anyone have current sell prices on the pane of 20 of 3091-3095b?

There are a bunch of these currently listed on ebay, starting at $75 thru $260. Nine of them are in the $200-$260 range, three in $100-$200, two in $75-$100.

Interesting that the high range of ebay listings refers to $260, as that's the price (shown in italics) in the Scott Specialized Catalog (at least in my 2013 edition).

Why is it so expensive? I check and it is called "Special Die Cut". What is so special? Thanks!

I can't believe it ! A question I can answer.
msfong , this variety was die cut for the use on first day covers.
The way they were cut you could pull 5 of the stamps off the pane without separating the stamps.

I find it interesting that Scott did not assign minor catalogue numbers to the individual stamps on the special die-cut panes. Instead they assigned 3095b to a strip of 5. Even without the "special die-cut", the gauges are different ... 11x11.1 for the normal pane, 11.25 for the special pane. Having measured these myself, Scott does give accurate measurements for this issue. The "special", of course, refers to the horizontal die-cuts between the stamps. But only between the stamps ... the top & bottom die-cuts between stamps & selvage are a normal 11.25. The horizontal die-cuts between the rows, however, have three 2mm gaps along each stamp. Because the vertical die-cuts are normal, it was relatively easy to lift an entire vertical strip of 5 from a sheet. While I don't recall exactly how many special die-cut panes were produced, I believe it was around 8,000.

I am just wondering whether the value of this pane will hold up over time. For some reason I am not sensing any heightened interest from collectors about this pane, notwithstanding its relative scarcity.

I have the general feeling that varieties in die cuts generate less interest than those in perforations, although I have no statistics to back this up.

One ebay listing suggests that the print quantity was only 7000 panes, although I can't be sure if that's accurate or not.

As for market value, they seem to be all over the place, and as suggested earlier, the interest in these panes are not particularly high, but a Matthew Bennett auction apparently realized $130 for TWO panes, so if that's any indicator, the street value of a single pane should be right around $65 (against a catalog value of $260), which figures out to be a little over 30% 25% of catalog value.

http://www.bennettstamps.com/cgi-bi...=1985&lang=1

$65 per pane actually is 25% of catalogue value. But 25-30% sounds about right. I remember seeing one sell on ebay a few years ago for just under $90. The catalog value at the time was still $300. It remains at $260 in the 2014 catalog.

Fixed my typo. Sorry.

I always knew I made a good decision and bought three full panes of these special die-cut Riverboats stamps when they were on sale for just one month at face value. I have never had the heart to separate the panes into strips of 5 and a plate block of 10.

Since you've multiple panes, may I ask whether the pattern of the broken die cuts is the same on all the panes, i.e., regardless of a pane's plate position?

They are all the same.

I bought a pane a few years ago for $80 but face would have been better! I also missed bugs bunny no die cut while I was at college and even though I knew they were going to be rare, did not buy any! If only I had a stack of 100 of the special riverboat or bugs bunny instead of a stack of star wars sheets that are sub face items nearly ten years later.

One thing I will add on this riverboats is that dealers sell a strip of five for about $50 per strip and $75 for the one strip that has the stamps in Scott order. So the demand for strips is greater than for panes.

I was unable to purchase the imperf Bugs Bunny pane of 10 when it was issued back in 1997. Later on, I put down $92 for one. There were 118,000 of the special Bugs Bunny panes. The special die-cut Riverboats only had approximately 8500 panes sold. If I remember correctly, the Riverboats special die-cuts are the rarest modern variety ever sold until the rise of imperf press sheets. If you have a full pane or a strip of five, hold on to them!

How may knew that these Riverboats Stamps were the "first" self adhesive commemoratives issued by the US Postal Service?