Opinion On Breaking Down Blocks Of Stamps Into Singles

There was a time - long long ago - when it was considered de rigeur to collect plate blocks. No more. I hate tearing up a plate block for singles but they just don't sell. And I think - with the exception of the old and rare - you c an disregard catalogue values for PBs.

Not my experience regarding US airmails. Of course, in the more common ones, the PB isn't worth much more than 4x the single, but it still has its value as a PB. And they don't have to be old or rare to have some value.

But yes, disregard CV's, but not just for PB's. They can be "disregarded" for just about anything that is not "old and rare." I put "disregarded" in quotes because CV can still have some usefulness. I routinely put an upper limit of 2/3 of CV on snipes. I win (guesstimate) about 90 percent of the auctions I bid that way, and probably the auction price averages out closer to 25-40 percent of CV. For things I'm not so familiar with that I know how to bid without looking of CV, I find CV useful for this.

Destroying any scarce multiple to obtain or sell one single part of it is, in my opinion, butchery.

dudley: I agree with you about it being butchery because once that multiple is broken down, it is irreversible and broken forever.

While I find the practice disgraceful, I stand by the 'right' for an owner to do what they want with their own property. There are many examples, across many industries and hobbies, in which this occurs. For decades old car hobbyists watch in horror as Hollywood consumed 'one of' rare cars for movie and television shows. (Many of these cars were completely destroyed for the sake of the movie.)

Depressing? Sure. How sad to be a person who could never afford one of these rare beauties only to watch them destroyed as a movie prop. Same for stamps. Many of us can only dream of owning some of these multiples; to see someone else chop them up is simply horrific to us.

But do we want to make it 'illegal' to do this? Would we really want to be dictated to on what we can and cannot do with our own personal property? This same debate rages across the beautiful mountains of North Carolina (where I live). The very thing that makes this a fantastic place to visit and live, the outstanding natural beauty, is being destroyed by folks buying and clearing a mountain top so they can build they homes. Do you protect 'the greater good' or honor the person's right to build a home the way they want? It is a very emotional issue and one not easily navigated.
Don

It all depends on the block. Certain one I would have no issue tearing into singles.

Here is a block of 504's (I think) that has no premium for being a block as far as I know and it's not a plate block so I could see making this into 6 singles.






But here is a block I own that I would never think of tearing down even though I doubt there is any premium for the block size. The reason I haven't is because I'll never know if it becomes the largest intact block at some point in time since the largest block I've seen of these is 4. I'm sure there are larger ones in collections but I will never know. It also is proof of all stamps being never hinged.

Too many people don't seem to understand that hand in hand with ownership comes responsibility, to actually understand what it is that you own. To actually understand the scarcity of something before you take a sledgehammer to it simply because you can.

I gotta agree with Don on this one. Responsible ownership of stamps is no different than responsible ownership of a car, a house, whatever. You can choose to allow your house to deteriorate and become unsightly or you can decide to chop off a garage just for the fun of it (assuming no zoning violations), or alter your car's paintjob with an ungodly color. No one can stop you from doing those things. You own them. You can do with them as you please. Same with your stamps.

That being said, I do agree it's a shame when scarcer multiples are broken up, but we can't stop it. I once owned the last surviving sheet of the 15c Banknote (Scott #189). Forgive me because I've told this story here before..... but when I sold it, the dealer who bought it broke it up, so now there are no surviving 15c Banknote sheets. That's a shame. But he excercised his right to destroy it.

I agree that older multiples shouldn't be broken up. I wouldn't break one up myself. But...trying to look for the silver lining here...at least more collectors get to enjoy these stamps. An intact sheet makes one collector happy. A sheet broken into individual stamps can make 50 or 100 collectors happy. Although I suspect the happiest are the sellers of those broken-up multiples who are able to realize bigger profits.

And we all have a right to think him a greedy fool who has no genuine interest in philately except as to the money he can make from it.
Of course the real issue here is that cars and houses can be replaced most of the time, these stamps cannot.
The fact that they CAN, does not make doing it RIGHT.

Well, dangit, Mr Bill... wish I'da known ya back then... I woulda
taken a second on my house to buy it from ya... (smiling)

Randall

Absent a specific law to govern any act, the question of "right" or "wrong" often is a very gray area, and a matter of personal opinion. And even though I strongly suspect that you and I share similar views on way more subjects than not, this question; "Is breaking up multiples......"right" or "wrong", I'm sorry to say, is a gray area.

I have often felt that the *only* sure solution to prevent dealers from breaking scarce multiples up in order to make a profit - is for collectors to be sure they outbid the dealers for the material - thus preventing it from getting into their hands. But trust me, in the real world, it's the dealers who are the backbone of the auction market, not collectors, and dealers are the buyers of the vast majority of such material as large multiples, thus the "carnage" will continue, unabated, forever.

Most of the time the breakups are not significant, but there are multiples that even the thought of breaking them up should give everyone very serious pause and do not. Those are the items that are the problem.

Bill Weiss - I disagree. he did not "destroy" the sheet - he made a whole lot of people happy by being an owner of that issue. Like plate blocks, there was a time many people collected full panes - but that number is very very small today.

Here's a philosophical point: stamps were meant to be separated - that's why they are perforated. If someone chooses to keep stamps intact that is against the convention, decided by rules other than the normal business rules governing stamps.

And in response to reactions - the fact is keeping stamps intact in blocks of panes is an aesthetic decision - sometimes driven by the market.

How far do you take this? Here's a pretty little set, wouldn't you agree? Does it do anything for you if I tell you these are not regular Banknote Issue stamps, these are all hard paper Special Printings of the Continental Bank Note Company?




Significant items, I'm sure you would agree. So, how does it make you feel when I tell you that every one of these stamps came from the unique plate number and imprint strips of four that had been assembled by the Earl of Crawford late in the 19th century. They were intact when his collection was sold in 1913.

"Col." E.H.R. Green was a multimillionaire stamp collector in the 1930s who took delight in buying and breaking full sheets, large blocks, and strips of rare material. He is the last man to have owned the full pane of C3a, and when he bought it he instructed Eugene Klein to start breaking it up immediately. I don't think they even made a photograph of it intact.

I find myself divided in my feelings about whether or not such items should be broken, but I am not divided in my opposition to the opinion on private ownership expressed here. If all collectors were to adopt this attitude toward their relationship to the material they collect, then I would think it is time for the good of posterity to introduce legislation banning the collection of postage stamps.

This war is raging in the collection of antiquities right now, driven by archaeologists and universities, with the upshot that increasingly it is becoming illegal for US citizens to own them. There are many arguments given, but one of the key underlying assumptions is that private collectors do not know how to preserve, care for, and study antiquities as well as museums and archaeologists.

If rare old postage stamps do indeed preserve a portion of US history, as some of us like to think, then the question of "ownership" needs to be reconsidered or it can be lost. Those who speak about the "rights" of ownership seem to forget two things: 1. not all things are "owned" in the same way, and 2. the only "rights" you effectively have are the ones you can protect.

Those who do not have the ability to collect postage stamps with an eye to posterity, should not be allowed to own anything rare that might be considered part of our cultural heritage. How's that for a radical position?

BTW there are lots of good citizens in Arkansas and North Carolina who regard dogs as personal property they can keep or dispose of any way they see fit. More than a few of them find their way to "no kill" rescue shelters in cities like Chicago. From these shelters one must sign certain "owner agreements" before an animal will be placed, and it is formally recognized as an "adoption." That exists and is another challenge to the question of "ownership" on yet another front.

Stamps aren't dogs, but some of them are cultural icons. How do you like your Special Printings, with or without selvedge? If I buy them, what gives me the right to say the story ends HERE and rip off those tabs? Ownership? How so?