Booklet Stamp: Where Does It Go?

I was a few weeks ago cleaning out my dad's desk. I say "my dad's desk," although it's been mine for thirty years. I'm not big on cleaning out things. Anyway, along with some mint penny postcards, I found a booklet with some stamps. I pulled out a stamp and went to put it in my album. I couldn't find a place for it. There's a place for a 2 cent carmine Washington, but not for a stamp from a booklet.

I looked at my Scott's and couldn't find anything about a booklet stamp. Then I looked further back in the catalog. Ah, a special section for booklets, and there it was. This is Bk70; the stamp is 554c.

That solves the ID problem, but I still have no special place to put the stamp. I guess I'll put is on the side of the page and mark it "booklet."

I would expect the stamp to be congruent with a 554 from a big pane. But 554 is perforated 11; I get 11 1/2 x 10 1/2 with my weak old eyes for the booklet stamp.

Scott gives a value of $900 for the booklet. I assume that is for a booklet full of stamps. My booklet has 3 stamps left. Any value? Should I put it up on ebay? I'm a big ebay seller. I'v sold one item for the princely sum of $1.11.

I think it's amusing that the Post Office thought customers would pay an extra penny for the convience of a booklet. Twenty-four 2 cent stamps for 49 cents.

Don

Please regard the $2 Columbian above. Having a little trouble matching titles to images. I'll post the booklet later.

Don

Here's the stamp as issued. Do you have some kind of printer's proof?

I can't see the picture very well, but isn't your Columbus stamp the 1992 version?

The booklet stamps is one of the many reasons why I decided to not even have a US Album, but simply to go with plastic stock pages.

I'd give the booklet cover pride of place.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Okay, this is the booklet.

Yes, the Columbus is 1992. I don't have an 1892.

Don

Why does this happen? This is not what I saw in the scan.

ddreisba,
You have to name each upload a different name. Note: you only have to have different names each day, you can reuse the same name on different days.
Don
APS #094826

I think I finally got it right. This is the booklet. With 3 stamps in it, is it worth anything?

Don

Many (most?) U.S. albums include spaces for major Scott numbers but do not generally provide spaces for minor numbers (varieties) like 554c. Many (most?) collectors collect 554c as a booklet pane or complete booklet, not as a single. If you want to collect booklet singles in your album you may have to create your own revised pages for them.

I'm beginning to see that is true, Rhett, for pre-1950 stamps. But my albums for recent stamps has, except occasionally when Mystic screws up, a place for all the variations in booklets, coils, etc. And my old album, when a sheet stamp was reissued as a coil or an imperf, had a place for it.

Don

Yeah, my info is correct for the pre-1950 stuff but I know zilch about post-1950. I guess Scott treats booklet singles differently in the modern era than they do in the classic era, as far as catalog number assignment?

Scott doesn't treat modern booklet stamps any differently. But, on occasion, booklet stamps will have different perf gauges than stamps of the same design that are produced in full panes. When this occurs, the booklet stamp gets a major catalog number rather than a minor number & is usually included in most stamp albums. In fact, if the perf (or die-cut) gauge is the same for both booklet & pane stamps, the booklet stamp doesn't get a separate minor number ... but the pane containing it does (if you look closely, 554c is the number for a full booklet pane). Note that a booklet pane will always receive a minor catalog number. Not so the stamp from a booklet pane.
Added: If the gauge is very close to the original the booklet stamp can receive a minor number. See Scott #3268 (die-cut 11.25) & 3268b (die-cut 11) for an example. In this case, both stamps are from booklets.

This is the tyranny of collecting to an album. Why let the album or catalog dictate what you do? In this wrinkled condition, with no complete panes and many stamps missing, the booklet likely has nominal market value, but it is an interesting historical snapshot nonetheless. Why not design your own album page that includes the single, the booklet as is, plus another example on cover and a vintage image of a Post Office counter of the same era (perhaps associated with Dad or his or your home town). Strive for a page that interprets what this object meant to its users rather than fitting it into a defined sequence of items that the catalog editors think is correct.

Thanks, JLLebbert, that is very informative. I learned something today! Also, I agree with cjpalermo1964 about creating your own pages to meet your specific wants and/or needs. I do this all the time in my collecting area.