Is This Stamp A CTO Or Used

The stamp (Zanzibar #348) has no gum. Scott value 2007 for mnh is $5.00 and for used copy is $30.00 (italicized). And if it's a CTO what's is value?

In the case where the used price is italicized because of the existence of CTOs and is also noticeably higher than the mint price, one common practice is to use the mint price as a reference ceiling. So in your case, the reference CTO price is <$5. Actual retail price, of course, is often much lower.

The genuine postally used price has gone up to $32.50 in the 2010 catalog.

it is a CTO

Thank you khj and stampvirgin,
So it's a CTO. It's not the only one then with this collection I bought. It means that it worth less than I thought. Got to beware about clean cancels in the corner. Daniel

Yeah, I kinda forgot to answer your actual question

Thanks, Daryl!

How do you know it is a CTO? A perfect corner cancel is not necessarily a CTO. Does that particular cancel type indicate it was cancelled to order?

You are correct in saying a perfect corner cancel does not automatically imply CTO.

Having worked a lot with bulk quantities, you can spot CTO's even without gum. The cancels on the CTOs for a certain issue/period/region will all be quite similar in appearance, and you can usually write down a finite number of postmark dates (usually, just one!). On many CTOs, the canceller used is NOT the same as the canceller used at the post office for real mail.

The really hard ones to spot are the post WWI through just after WWII German area cancels. In some cases, stolen genuine cancellers were used, and some of the forgers were smart enough to apply the cancels haphazardly, instead of at the corners or socked-on-the-nose. In some cases, such as Saar, I have some CTOs confirmed by gum still on the back of the stamp -- I then use those dates to match up and filter out CTOs that had gum removed to make them look genuine. Is there a possibility that some stamps were actually postmarked on that date -- yes, but you can tell it was made with the same canceller device as the other CTOs.

I am unable to pull out my Zanzibar to make an official check for you, but I'm almost certain that's a typical CTO cancel. Zanzibar is notorious for fake cancels and CTOs, even among the earlier issues. This includes fake Zanzibar cancels on non-Zanzibar stamps. Somewhere, there is a website that discusses this. And I know there are some threads in some (other) Forums that discuss this as well.

As the whole date is missing, it's hard to be sure, but we can see a '5' for the day, and a '6' for the year. As the set was issued on the 5 June 1964, it's quite possible this stamp has been soaked off an FDC.

More generally, though, you'd have to ask yourself how likely it is that the top value of a long definitive set like this would be used in such a way as to receive such a nice, neat corner cancel. You'd expect any legitimately used copies to have come from parcels, or at least rather heavy bulky, registered airmail envelopes. In either case, the cancels would more likely be heavy and smudged than looking like this one does.

I haven't mentioned this in the past, but the italicized prices usually also exclude stamps soaked off philatelic FDCs, even though the stamp may have actually gone through the mail system. Typically, stamps soaked off FDCs will retail for the same as CTOs or somewhere between postally used and CTOs prices. I admit, I'm one of those who usually uses CTOs and first day cancels interchangeably on modern stamps, even though they technically are not the same thing.