Love Or Hate Slabbed Stamps

Do you love or hate slabbed stamps?




George

Well...

There are at least 3 slabbed 988s on StampWants right now. $55, $75 and $200 (for a gem 100).



This stamp




is available from irish123stamps on StampWants for $1.30, and he thinks his is XF+. (I am not saying that it is every bit as nice as the slabbed stamp shown.) Keep looking and you might pay 0.15 for a very nicely centered example. Eight cents would get you one that I would be fine putting in my album.

Basically, I'm comfortable making my own decisions on centering.

My 2d.

OK so I hate, why would anyone slab a 25 cent stamp? Why slab any stamp less than say.... 1000bazillion dollars?

I love my own stamps, the weeds, the ripped and torn,
the abstruce, the cinderellas.

I find I like to watch what other people do, I am like
a spectator, I really don't feel either one way or the other.
The only time I seem to feel strongly is with gum, and
the destruction of stamps.

There will be tears before teatime when this very, very silly fad dies. As it will.

That looks like a Fine to Very Fine at some angles to me.
Gad zooks. Taking it to the extremes that is.

I don't even like this XF and Superb labels thingy that I see once in a while. Although I think that second scan is a really nice stamp, all in all, (after an examination of the back and turning it at different angles in a nice light to catch any naughtiness).

Everything is relative. What is OK to me is not to someone else.

I sold a nice old Canadian stamp once to a nice gentleman. It was a Very Fine centered and no faults (to me). However, to him, when he got it and looked at the back where the circular cancel and date plug and pushed through the stamp slightly, as I thought would be mostly normal, he was into collecting non-pushed through cancelled stamps, and so returned it, no hard feelings.

I described it better next time and sold it again.

I thought, well, someone with a darn hammer, wacking away at stamps on envelopes a good part of the day, would have built up good arm muscles and if that person was having a postal day (pardon the expression) the hammer could be wielded with a bit more alacrity than normally expected. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Not cut into or through so really nice to me. Proof, I thought, of actual usage and no fake modern cancelling or through the printer business going on.

If I survive a good 75 years I would expect to show the wear and hard knocks. I may not be a well centered example but I am a good example anyway. I think I am already hinged too, although it is hard to tell from where I am.

edit: typos

The whole concept of slabbing is silly, especially on a stamp I would normally use for postage on a regular basis.

Please for a newbie could you describe "slabbing"? I see the image, but does that mean the stamp is forever encased, or what?

you have answered everything in your question stampgal without realizing it

In that case, to answer the original question, I hate it!!

Slabbed stamps are not for me either.

Silly, stupid, daft, pointless etc etc etc.

If everyone stops buying them, and the dumbed-down method of collecting they represent, the better the world will be.

Not one of the best inventions to come out of the US (sorry folks)

Slabbed stamps are NOT for me either.
To each his/her own. Wishing all a great day!

The ONLY time I would buy one if it is UNIQUE or close to it. Only because I would be concerned with damage. But then again if I could afford a few million for something like a British Guinea I could also afford a guard to watch over it 24/7.

It's dead, and wrapped in plastic.........

for the most part, I don't think slabbed stamps are any representation of collecting. just a new venue for investors, who don't have any knowledge of stamps. even the name of the slabbing company, PROFESSIONAL Stamp Experts, tells me that their concern is not about collectors/collecting, but profiting (from others ignorance).