Rant: Why I Despise The Professional Grading Of Stamps

revenuecollector.....
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This seller does not sell revenues....

Some people prefer this type.....

Actually, this dealer does occasionally have revenues, granted not on a regular basis.

Wow, those mutilated multiples are sure ugly when in 100 grade format. I would never display those in my collection.

Wow I saw this too and was going to post. Destroying national parks plate blocks is terrible but those early imperforates pairs each destroyed TWELVE great stamps around it. Bummer. I don't like that either. But I do like some aspects of graded stamps and I like this dealer too.

PSE would have done the hobby a little better to grade imperforates in such a way as to not condone this behavior. Get your 756-765 plate blocks while you can folks they likely will be going up in value as a result of this new phenomenon!

What it comes down to is destroying/mutilating at least five stamps for the sake of one stamp.

There are still many hundreds if not thousands of sheets of 756-765 around, plate blocks are not scarce and will not be getting scarce anytime soon. The Farleys have a very high survival rate. Especially since the more of these types of items get created the cheaper they will become.

Dealer, shmealer. This is down to us. Nobody makes us buy this stuff.

Yeah, sure, it would be better if PSE et al took us all off of the hook by changing the rules, but are we all lacking in such confidence about what to collect & how to collect that we are actually intimidated into buying these butcheries?

All that having been said, if I were an albumizer - and I wanted all of my stamps to fit in as-printed albums - I could see the logic (and only the logic) of cutting-down an ordinary block-of-nine to make an extraordinary fit-in-the-little-box single with generous margins.

I am glad that so many of us are sure that we would never make or buy one of these grotesques.

What we need to get over is that other people do.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I once lamented to a Classics scholar what a shame it was that the library in Alexandria was destroyed. What treasures must have been lost...

He replied, "My God, we argue enough as it is!"

WOW! Very sad.

Sharing an opinion or two about these practices may give a newbie a little food for thought. I'm all for "live and let live" and "collect what you want" et cetera, et cetera, but I also don't mind asking the emperor to put on a robe.

I had a similar rant here about the manufacturing of graded "100 Gems"

https://goscf.com/t/39912&SearchTer...ng,of,graded

If it had one, I would press the "like" button (for the original post, not stamp grading).

If they own the material it is theirs to do with what they want. I don't have to like it and don't.

They are trying to make one stamp perfect while damaging many others in the process. When collecting imperforates (and coils) are not at least pairs or more the usual philatelic custom rather than singles, especially when these stamps are also issued (fully) perforated? I can understand perforated single stamps as being another philatelic custom and rare old early classic that were only issued imperforate as singles as well.

On a more serious note than is my custom, I ask, "Why would anyone do this to a sheet of stamps?" I just don't get it. The material is there. All one must do is use a small bit of imagination to see it. Or, lacking that, use some kind of mount that frames the stamp as one would like. Why ever destroy things?

On the other hand, I wonder if those who collect covers wonder why most of us remove stamps. One can imagine just how many interesting covers have been destroyed by those interested only in stamps.