More Ebay Weirdness

Extremely dry printing, catalog number undetermined, centering undetermined, mint original gum, never hinged????

wert--I honestly laughed out loud at your comment on the blank jenny. I'm sort of with the consensus above on this non-stamp stamp and would value it a $0. (and humor wise--I accidentally floated a valuable "De Pinedo" Newfoundland Stamp #C4 in bleach instead of watermarking fluid and its all white...but I swear its real and will sell it for $1,000 (catalog is of course $60,000)....should I list on ebay?

on a more serious note, this is the difference between Caveat Emptor (which ebay is founded on) and Caveat Venditor which appears to be the sentiment of the community here.

The difference is level of honesty used properly describing the material you sell and the impact you have on the hobby.
Can anyone really argue that it is good for the hobby to not fully describe or mislead a buyer? Certainly a seller can simply use 'lies of omission' to make a faster sale and stay within ebay rules of conduct, but is this s a good thing?

Anyone can indeed ask for and sell whatever they want (within reason) when selling on ebay. I hold no ill-will towards folks who might be asking what I think is for too much for some material. The majority of us will simply acknowledge and move onto the next offering. And selling less than quality material is no sin, as long as it is properly and honestly described; many hobbyists will buy space fillers if they cannot afford the very best.

But without question there are some sellers who while touting their experience and knowledge, will incorrectly describe listings. A full 20% of all listings Reviewed in Stamp Smarter contain misidentified stamps. And now that we are closing in on 1000 reviews in Stamp Smarter it is easy to detect which sellers reflect this trend and even more enlightening that these same sellers never, ever make a listing errors in favor of the buyer.

That said, we are hopefully that these kinds of sellers are on the decline and that with better buyer education these trends will slowly disappear. If folks will continue supporting forums (and threads) like this, sites like Stamp Smarter, and spend their money only with the those sellers who do their best to properly sell online we can greatly improve the situation and philately. We support and recommend the following sellers for the outstanding job they do with their online listings.
weissstampexpertizing
http://www.ebay.com/sch/weissstampe..._ipg=&_from=

paper_antiquarian
http://stores.ebay.com/The-Paper-Antiquarian

Mr Fancy Cancel
http://stores.ebay.com/mrfancycance...047675.l2563

srailstamps
http://srailstamps.com/

RJ stamps
http://stores.ebay.com/rjsstampblockandcardcorner

kenr2
http://stores.ebay.com/Kens-Store

The more serious note, on which one should be here, has been lost in the clamour.
The provenance comes from the integrity of Bileski... IF... his notes came with the stamp.
No one would have suspected him of fraud. The stamp would be genuine.
That still would not make it very valuable, however.

"He did not explain why the Canadian postal authorities should use blank pieces of paper, rather than, as in Great Britain, cancelled regular stamps, to aid staff training"

There are blank US test stamps that are listed in the Scott catalog.

Well, looks to me that the asking price by Sheetguy is a bit high. look at this well known Admiral collector and a pack of blocks, singles is currently valued at 250 and current bid is 150$ for 13 stamps total, that is less than 10$ per single.
From the Bringham Auction site: The 'unprinted' blank Admiral stamps on stamp paper with full original gum and never hinged in single and three margin blocks of four. Purportedly ten sheets were found by a postmaster intermittently mixed in with other regularly printed 1¢ green sheets (they were perhaps stuck to the sheet above when printed and perforated, or used for 'spacing' or 'stacking' purposes and not subsequently removed), a most interesting 'albino' adjunct to an Admiral collection. Ex - Brigham. http://stampauctionnetwork.com//BG/bg41.cfm

A corner block of six and a block of four with Bileski notes are now offered on ebay #191528397351. (for $159.99 US)

If this was an American Bank Note Company dry printing (pre-gummed paper before printing) then it would be an early perforator test run of dry printed stamp paper. Dry printed stamps came out in late 1922 for Canada. Looking at the gum missing along the corner margins of some panes would indicate a wet printing because gum would have been added after printing and it does not cover the paper as well as the gum does on dry printed (pre-gummed paper). Anyways, it may most likely be a test run of the following American Bank Note Company perforator patent of 1914: http://www.google.com/patents/US1120753 I just went and bought some of these on ebay because I now think that they are this.

I noticed that there have been interesting sales of these on ebay in the last month.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/270954610380

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/271089026866

Conceptual art for the stamp collector.

A famous collector here in Canada, Ron Brigham, had some in his Admiral collection. It was sold last March, he had a set including singles and blocks. Price realized was $230 Canadian.

Here is a different Canadian one: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/311197208542

Here are some for U.S. stamps: http://www.jameslee.com/newessays1.htm

Here's a different Bileski note than the one shown at the beginning of this topic. It appears that Bileski later did not believe that these were postal clerk or postal employee training stamps.

jogil,
"I was given to understand about 1915...". Has this part of the story ever been verified? If these were printers waste instead would that change their value?
Don

jogil...I had posted this note on another thread...I talked to Dr. Jim Watt, an authority on these stamps and his opinion was they were real..

Robert