Zazzle®: The Ecv Of Stamps Made On Zazzle, Etc.?

TO ALL,

What do you feel the estimated catalog value of a privately produced stamp with ZAZZLE, etc., on should be for the following:

SINGLE, Mint?
SINGLE, postally used?
Full sheet/partial sheet?
Postally used on cover?
and more importantly: How collectible will these be in: 25-50-100 years?
Are these "real" postal history?

Response may be $, C$, A$, Euro, or worthless

They have a very small following, so hard to say.

Thanks, eyeonwall

Maybe, just maybe there will be an album in the future that includes a spot for one. Maybe they will be considered similar to folk art. So far it seems that no one famous has used it. So far, no one seems to have created notable examples.

I doubt that any will become very collectible, but it could happen. I fear that any attempt at creating a collectible variety will result in a mass production that churns out stamps that are common.

Overall I doubt that any created in any manner will become valuable. Only time will tell and I am not optimistic.

Maybe someone notable will create their own designs that become collectible. I doubt that it could happen without being mass produced.

However, I am just a speculator on the Internet. Time will tell all.

The questions are interesting and any answers are purely speculative. Right now, modern technology seems to be very unpopular with stamp collectors. Computer vended, or produced stamps on modern, self-stick paper lack the character of engraved stamps on fine, traditional paper. Still, things can and do change in this hobby. Something can be 'hot' for a while, and then cold for a long while. I think the old advice that 'one should collect what they like, and not for financial gain' is the best advice I have ever heard, in regard to stamps. If I were a collector of Zazzle stamps, I would include technical information with them, because without it a person probably wouldn't know what they were looking at 50 or 100 years from now.

Personally, I don't collect them and have thrown the covers I have received in a box with general accumulation as curiosity items; however another SCF post showing ebay prices & prices realized this weekend caught my attention.

Historical DNA Collector & bookbndrbob: I like both your perspectives of the subject. Wonder if they could end-up as a "Topical" category?

My approach to all these computerized private-issues (Zazzle, Stamps.com, endicia, etc) is to obtain high quality exemplars on cover for my main collection. I have also added a few singles on piece to thematic collections. Otherwise, I am not concerned about different values and won't chase after a myriad of pictorials on what are essentially metered mail. (Add-on cachets are bad enough!)

Since I consider them as metered mail, I will not pay more than $1.00 for any item. I don't believe they will hold any value whatsoever.

As for being postal history? Of course the are! On a legitimate-use cover, these are no less valid in a postal history collection than stampless covers, local posts, carriers, provisional, etc. They demonstrate an authorized use of a new process of confirming payment.

THANKS, kollectorkurt!

Hmm......I'll answer later.
For now, let me quickly show some of my designs:

Hal, thank you for your interesting questions, about a topic that's near and dear to me.




I suppose your first question was meant to say, basically: what is (or should be) the ECV of personalized stamps (customized postage) from Zazzle, etc.?
Right now, the short answer is: N/A (not applicable).
The Scott catalog stopped listing them when it became an excruciating endeavor for them--understandably so. "A myriad of designs"...

The Austria Post had (maybe still has) a catalog/webpages for all or some the personalized stamps that were actually issued through AP.

There are also lists and indexes compiled by some philatelists.

So, for me, a better question is: what is the ESTIMATED MARKET VALUE of the above stamps?
Some verifiable information can be compiled as an answer.
The asking price can be highly subjective, but you can search for SOLD LISTINGS on ebay, delcampe, etc.
Even a sold listing final price can be quite subjective, as with other collectibles: was the buyer a sucker, or an expert? Why did they pay that amount?
What if it just so happens that a sucker, or an expert, did NOT stumble across that listing in due time, to name their price?

In the next post, I'd like to answer point-by-point your questions, Hal, and also some comments from our other fellows here.

Your second question:


My personal opinion is that they will be inevitably more and more collectible than today.
Simply because their rarity (at any printed denomination) can only increase over the years. A Zazzle stamp is printed in 20 stamps per sheet.
I have several designs of Zazzle stamps, at now-obsolete denomination that puts them in a definitive worldwide print run of only 20 in the world (at that denomination, as I said).
How's that for RARITY? Inverted Jenny are "only 100 stamps"...sure, it's a different type of stamp, issued directly by USPS.
But Zazzle and a few others are "officially-licensed vendors of USPS", so their "personalized stamps/metered mail with an image" are fully valid for postage, which answers your third question, if they are "real postal history".
Yes, they are. If USPS says so, so should you.

To be continued.

As I said before, on various websites:

"re: Personalized Stamps / Picture Postage
Let me share with you a few interesting and useful considerations about personalized stamps.

I have created, with Zazzle and other providers, over 150 different designs of personalized stamps, from several countries, of which I have actually bought, generally in sheets of 20 stamps each, (and sometimes personally re-sold) personalized stamps in over 50 different designs. Some of those 50 were available for sale only to me, since I have only uploaded them to my Private Gallery at zazzle.com. Or, I have used providers with NO gallery to sell MY stamp designs to the public, such as endicia.com, pictureitpostage.com, royalmail.com, auspost.com.au, tntpost.com. Additionally, some of my other designs at Zazzle, the other 100 or so, were materialized by other people when they ordered them from my Public Gallery at zazzle.com.

If you want to explore ideas about what YOU, too, can create, please visit (you don't have to buy anything) my Public Gallery, the Postage section, at Zazzle: [email me if you want me to send you that link]. Or you can search by my main store name: dorinco.
For search engines consideration, I have put in the title both the American English version ("personalized") and the British English version ("personalised").
In English, "stamp" may also mean "postmark", "cancel", "rubber stamp" – but I use "stamp" for "postage stamp", and "postmark" for "the cancel applied with a postmarking device".

What is a personalized stamp? It's a stamp that is customized, to some degree, and it's valid for postage. Read the Wikipedia definition here:,or postage. Read the Wikipedia definition here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personalized_stamp. Not to be confused with a fantasy stamp, that is NOT valid for postage. Synonyms for a fantasy stamp are: "cinderellas", "artistamps", "fantasy local post" stamps (as opposed to some stamps of real local posts, that WERE valid for postage; for example, the Zemstvo stamps), etc. So, since they ARE valid for postage ("postal use"), the personalized stamps are a special kind of legitimate stamps. They are legal, therefore accepted for official use by the postal administrations.

Terminology is important here, because of the legal interpretations, philatelic interpretations, and the consequences of all that – specifically, HOW are the authorities and the people (stamp collectors or not) considering and using them. In all countries that allow the issuance of personalized stamps, they are recognized and named as such: "personalised stamps", "personal stamps", "IDtimbre", etc. In USA, the technicality of "legalese" (the language of lawyers…) has generated the term "customized postage", instead of "personalized stamp". There are laws that prohibit the modification of "currency", and postage stamps are viewed as some sort of currency ("legal tender").

Other American legal/postal interpretation is that "personalized stamps" are "some sort of meter labels" and USPS said that they "don't require postmarking".
In the context of such interpretations (more or less subjective), my interpretation is the following: personalized stamps are NOT simply "meter labels". They are intentionally manufactured to LOOK like stamps and to SERVE FUNCTIONS like stamps do, both postally and philatelically.

The personalized stamps sold by zazzle.com, for example, do NOT have a date of use on them (they will be indefinitely valid as postage for the denomination at which you bought them, such as 46 cents, for example). The truth is that the difference between traditional postage stamps and "meter labels" is becoming more and more blurred, worldwide, with the use of "variable value stamps" and various labels (meter or not) with images (customized or not). Meter labels of all sorts look more and more like traditional stamps.

My interpretation about postmarking not being "required" is that postmarking is NOT absolutely necessary, but it's OK to be done, for philatelic purposes, at least. In theory, the post office is supposed to decode the" barcode" information (IBI = information-based indicia) on the personalized stamp (I am talking about USA now) so no postmark is needed. In practice, most post offices still operate traditionally, handcanceling or machine-canceling them at the sorting facility. Even if the mail pieces have personalized stamps, even if the mail pieces have precancelation by a MPP device (Mailer's Postmark Permit, see USPS Form 3615)…

Now that we clarified, hopefully, the terminology and some interpretations of the official status of the personalized stamps, let's talk about what YOU can do, from now on.
YOU, the reader of this, may choose to diversify. Instead of (or in addition to) being a passive COLLECTOR of traditional stamps (designed by others, hired by national postal administrations), you might be interested in DESIGNING stamps of your own liking.
Since you'll probably never get the chance to do it with traditional stamps, approved by your national postal administration, you can do it with Personalized Stamps!
My main recommendation to you is to use zazzle.com, even if you use that website only for its superior capabilities of design, and then you take that draft design and finalize your creation with some other provider.

Also, Zazzle is the only provider of personalized stamps worldwide, as far as I know, that gives you a Public Gallery on their website. There, you can re-order or edit your creations, and everybody else in the world can order your stamp designs, if they want. But Zazzle only ships "customized postage" to U.S. or Canadian addresses, so you would need an American or Canadian partner to buy such stamps for you.
If you only want to insert an image, to design a stamp, it may be simple. But there are many tips and tricks about the other options and decisions, beyond that step. There's a learning curve.

If you want to manipulate an image, or to add text in various font types, font sizes, font color, orientation, placement, border, zoom, layers, etc., then it can get complicated and time-consuming. Frustrating, too. If you want and can afford to pay, you can hire somebody who knows exactly how to do it, according to your detailed specifications. In case you are computer-savvy, you can learn by yourself, eventually. That's what I did, since 2006."