Why Don't We See More Cut Perfs?

I'm assuming that nice perfs have been a desired quality for stamps for quite a long time. If that's the case, wouldn't collectors of long ago have taken the time to separate perfed stamps with a scissors?

(Why do I think this is going to turn out to be a dumb question?)

I can only speak for myself. Even if I were inclined to "improve" the appearance of a stamp by separating them this way, I wouldn't trust myself to cut perfectly straight. In other words, there's a really good chance that the stamp(s) would actually look worse than if you just separated them the way they were intended. Basically it's a wheel that doesn't need reinventing.

Unless the stamp is perf 10 or less, there is usually no risk of damaging (shortening) perf tips...especially if the sheet is folded a few times before separating. Most old time collectors didn't seem to care too much about condition, if you think about the condition of stamps in ancient albums. They would glue them to the page, or completely trim the perfs. Even when they were careful, they would use selvage for hinges, and hinge stamps on top of other stamps.

I think scissors in the hands of an old time collector would be a death sentence for the stamp in many cases.

Good point, but I'm surprised there wasn't a whole industry of 'perfectly cut perf' devices established.

I just wonder if years ago the preference was for genuine 'natural' perfs, just as today many see philatelic uses of stamps as kind of gimmicky.

The same people who worry about the perfs also mostly like to leave the stamps together.

You just cut a little bit the stamps around so you have the full perforations ........ ... wait before throw the stones , it's a joke


Seriously, I need to see those small fibers of paper resulting of the tearing.

66, you`re funny!

You also make an interesting point about the fibers being more visible with a regularly torn perf.

One of the signs of re-gumming is that the perfs have lost their wipsy whiskery fluffy hairy edges; cutting perf'd stamps with a sharp instrument, today, is one way of making your OG stamp look re-gummed.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey (who hopes that four adjectives will at least add up to one)

Good point, ikey, though my interest is more with the past in this case. One of these days I`ll have time to look through archived collector magazines and get a better idea of what folks back then thought was important.

I would think that the collections they left would give us an "idea of what folks back then thought was important".

Which raises an interesting point, which I'll raise in its own thread.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

As an interesting footnote to this discussion, when perforations were first introduced in US stamp production (1857) some users and perhaps postmasters continued to separate stamps using scissors anyway. The effect on perforations from an aesthetic point of view, as seen 150 years later, was not pretty.