Post Your Worst Stamp Here.

This one isn't completely horrible from the front...



...but when you turn it over and hold it up to light, it gets really ugly, really fast:

Thanks moon, I think that's going to haunt my sleep.

I picked up this Uganda beauty a few days ago. Can you say torn? I still think it was $0.25 well spent.

And this is what you will ALL look like in the future - when you have been stuck by static electricity to the bottom of a Fred Jordan CD and put in the player!

I'll keep it. It might be a fake. It is probably an Overprint By Favour. But deep in my heart I will always know it was actually the last surviving genuine one.

I always thought my Folk Music habit was less expensive than my stamp habit. But on this occasion.....

I suppose it's one way of putting a stamp onto an album.

Here is mine

Gladiators... if that's your *worst* stamp,
you must have one helluva collection... many
of us would classify (your worst stamp) amongst
our *best~stamps*...

I show these next two as a lesson on why we need to insure our purchases, both of these stamps were sound when I bought them, Both mailed in a stiff mailer, and both took a wrong turn through the sorter in transit. Each arrived as a notice to see pm at the counter, and a "We're sorry" note and I was reimbursed later, but I'm still out the stamps! The O33 won't be real easy to replace, but pen canceled high value Justice stamps aren't all that scarce. Now,I didn't settle for a pen canceled 30C Justice, I was looking for one, to complete a Justice set with pen canceles. But here's what the Post Office delivered instead.





This is the one that is going to be tough to replace! To begin with, only 198 of O76s were sold, the other 9802 were destroyed. Out of the possibly 198 remaining, how many are going to be centered as well as this one is, or be in the condition it was in before the Post Office did this to me again?

Look on the bright side. Only 9803 were destroyed - and you have one of them!

Gladiators001...That is your WORST stamp..??
Tell me that is your ONLY stamp...

@Gladiators001 - does that tear in the UR corner extend beyond the numeral "1" or does it stop there? The lathework makes it hard to tell. Still, it is an attractive appearing example.

My example piece for this thread does not appear at all attractive, but I think it has a good story. This is probably the worst condition of any stamp I have that I would wish to keep.




As you can see it is in pretty grisly shape, certainly nothing that would be the poster child for its kind. Yet, despite that, in 2011 this item provided the illustration for number 145-E1, the first essay of the Bank Notes portion of the essay section listed in Scott's US Specialized Catalog. It was the only known example at the time.

This had gone unlisted until Siegel handled the "Lakeshore" collection in 2005-06. It appeared in the last of the three sales (S. 909, L 1216) and the prices realized show that it sold. Five years later, in 2011, it was offered in another Siegel sale where I bought it as the only known example. Because it appears to be an earlier die state of the die used to produce 145-E1C, its design parameters might be reconstructed. So, although the precise details of the design were somewhat open to conjecture at the time, I immediately made preparations to have it restored by a well known paper conservator. However, within six months an intact version of the same essay was offered, again by Siegel, and I was able to purchase it as well.




Now that we know precisely how this essay ought to look, a paper reconstruction might well yet be attempted. But so far I have not acted on that, and the torn and crumpled state of one of the only two examples known to exist remains unchanged. A sorry state, to be sure, but grand in its own way too.

essayk, it's a Picasso!

Gee, do you suppose it might have been in Guernica during the Spanish Civil war? Maybe this is what broke the heart of the weeping maiden and tore her all to pieces.

Moon, I agree. That is the stuff of nightmares. Everyone else, your submissions make me feel better about keeping what I do.

Here's my #25 that I keep because its the only one that I have. Might be a 25A due to the very very faint recut of an upper right hand inner line. At least the centering makes it clear that it isn't a 26.

Regardless, I worry about losing the chaff.

This is my worst but I still love it. Gotta start somewhere.