Cto's

When my father was collecting stamps, he regarded perfins as "damaged." Tell that to a modern perfin collector!

CTO's are routinely criticized here as virtually worthless. Now I read about how Chinese collectors value CTO's in the September 9th issue of Linn's Stamp News (electronic edition) page 30:

"Unlike their American counterparts, Chinese collectors prefer stamps that have been cancelled to order (cancelled without doing postal duty) to postally used stamps. … The hierarchy of collecting preferences in China runs CTO full gum, never hinged, CTO full gum hinged, CTO no gum, with postally used dead last."

Maybe the trend will catch on and I can sell my CTO's! Lession: One person's trash is another person's treasure.

Dad hung on to his perfins regardless of his impression of them. I guess I'll hang on to my CTO's for a while!

Dan

Since when I collect, I feel I am collecting an example of a stamp and not its use, I will take a neatly canceled CTO copy over a grubby postmarked example which is probably flawed otherwise due to handling with a crease, a bumped corner, short or pulled perfs, etc.

I, too, was surprised to read of the preferences of Chinese collectors. I agree with Modern_who that pristine CTO is preferable to a grubby postally used stamp. I suppose there are some exceptions to this.