Using Half Of A Stamp For Postage?

Was there a time when you could do this?

Check out this listing. Don't be in a hurry to regain composure after seeing the price.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Scott-26...em3aa97c314f

If you could do this at one time, it is not allowed now. When did the USPS stop the practice?


-IBFS

Why speak of the USPS in a general forum?

These are known as bisects and genuine uses can be valuable. I'm not sure if it was ever officially sanctioned to bisect stamps, but it was done on occasion when smaller denominations ran out. They are only collected on cover or on piece, with a cancellation that clearly "ties" the stamp to it's mailing wrapper.

I think I'd be a little leery of this one, however. It seems like this would have been fairly easy to fake, if you look at it closely.

There's a pair of 269s on cover, quite probably the same stamp cut in half and used on 2 covers.

They both sold at Siegel for over $2K each if memory serves, check their powersearch for 269s on cover and you'll doubtless find them.

It also looks suspect to me.

Google images -- stamps bisects --- and you'll see lots of examples on cover. I'm surprised that you haven't run across these before. But, there's always something new to learn, which makes life, and philately, interesting.

https://www.google.com/search?site=...amps+bisects

Bisects are generally collected and valued for on-cover uses, however they have value as well on-piece, but at a much lower level. One of the reasons is that the cover is needed to determine whether it was legitimately used or accepted for postal use, or if postage due or other auxilliary markings were added discounting it's sufficiency or legitimacy.

I purchased a bisect cover once and the seller kindly included a photocopy of this newspaper article with the cover. Here's the cover and news clipping.

My grandma had fun with this back in 1936. One successful, and one not quite successful attempt shown at this earlier thread:

https://goscf.com/t/23745#23745

Always neat stuff to see on SCF.

More on the 1925 usage may be found here:

http://www.linns.com/en/insights/us...-the-un.html

So am I. My focus in collecting has been so narrow in just collecting US classics for years now. But to not ever see one has to be strange. Learned alot in this topic. Thanks for the help.


-IBFS