Opinion On Breaking Down Blocks Of Stamps Into Singles

Since these plate numbers are rare, one would be paying a premium for these plate number singles when buying them. However, anyone foolish enough to later tear them off will most likely realize a loss in the value of these stamps without their plate numbers and it would also be a great loss of the unique feature of these stamps as they relate to philately.

Indeed radical. And just who gets to decide who does or does not have the "ability" you describe? Will there be a "Board of Preservation Ability Evaluation"? Or something similar? And how do you envision this "ability" or lack of it, will be enforced? Will there be a professional enforcement arm of the hobby who can "arrest" and "prosecute" any offenders?

This hobby doesn't even have the ability to stop crooks from selling their problematic wares to inexperienced buyers, wherever the venue, so I can't imagine any way to stop owners from doing whatever they please with the property they acquire.

Bill, If owners have the right spirit no one will have to force anything on them. But nothing kills that spirit faster or more certainly than avarice.


As for how it all gets started - public opinion

Here's a fairly egregious example (not accusing the seller here--who knows who did it?)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/7-USED-RECU...em27f87c4a46

The stamp for sale, while not too bad, is cut from the original pair very close at left, so the other stamp could become a super-duper jumbo grade 2000 used single. The original pair was a gem with a clean PFC. Why in the world would it be destroyed (rhetorical question)?

STUPIDITY (rhetorical answer)

A question for Bill and any other expertizer on the forum...
Is a cert invalidated when the item as certified is altered?

In my opinion, the stamp being offered DOES NOT carry a valid cert, and I would NEVER buy such an item.

Why even ask... it doesn't take am expertizer to answer this...

Y-E-S !

Actually the cert is still valid, but getting a new cert should be a priority. Auctions do this all the time, list singles with certs from when it was part of a multiple.

Obviously the cert is for condition rather than genuineness.

Bart is correct. The cert is still valid. Like he says, singles are sold all the time that originated in multiples. Most commonly seen are singles broken from blocks. As long as the condition of the single matches the description on the cert., it is acceptable.

I certainly wouldn't send it in for a second cert. A #9 is too common and too easily identified to justify one. I would, however, change the ebay description to a #9 instead of #7. :)

<--- has never spent enough $$ on a stamp to warrant a certificate.

A new cert would not be for identification, it would be to make sure that the stamp was not damaged when it was separated, depending on the stamp and a collector's ability to do so himself.

But the new cert would just have to be redone if the item were offered for sale, and it would only be useful to someone who wanted to buy it sight unseen. The stamp is inexpensive enough that the price differential between cert or no cert probably is less than the cost of another cert.

Clearly it would depend on the particular stamp involved.

Which is the #9 from the beginning of the thread. :)