Why I Despise Grading

I cannot ever remember seeing a stamp look better after dipping it in lighter fluid. Most dirt that needs petroleum based product to remove will soak in and stain the paper and will not come out with lighter fluid.

Cleaning with a bath in water falls within the purview of preservation and conservation, something that any conscientious collect should do. Bathing in other solvents to remove offensive staining also seems to have preservation at the heart of the practice. Cutting an imperf single out of a block or the largest recorded multiple to get a high grade is a philatelic crime. When this occurs we should document it and make every effort to identify the damage and the perpetrators of the crime.

This is certainly not a new phenomenon from grading. Grading just made it worse. As has been alluded to, this is driven by the higher end of the market - frequently exhibitors are buyers, where competition for very high quality stamps is intense, and supply is scarce. Seller Solution: make more. This has the ironic effect of both creating more supply AND increasing the price on the item often.

I once purchased a jumbo pair of an early US stamp. It was a really nice item. A couple years afterwards, I saw what was obviously the third stamp, from a former strip of three, on ebay. I then discovered that that strip of three used to be intact, on a Texas cover. This was a nice postal history item to boot back then.

I don't really know what to say here. Many, if not most collectors have soaked one or more stamps off of an otherwise seemingly uninteresting cover. Was that town postmark really uninteresting? We'll never know now. What crosses the line? Where does one draw the line? Should there even be a line, if someone owns an item. We put rare important historical items in museums, presumably with the thought that they will be kept intact there. Bad things won't happen to those items. Clearly, we are not going to house all stamps and covers in museums for preservation. We, as collectors are the caretakers of these items through history. Dealers have been an essential part of our hobby. It pains me to see things like this happen, but as long as commerce and decentralized holding of items (individual collecting) is the model for our hobby, I don't see this changing.

Bob Allen wrote this short blurb on this topic, "It is certain that dipping a dirty stamp in lighter fluid often has a cleansing effect, leading to another debate as to whether this "cleansing" constitutes a restoration or even an alteration of the stamp. Such cleansing in the coin world often devalues a collectible coin considerably. This is not an issue as yet in the stamp world and, frankly, I feel it never will be."

Lighter fluids typically contain Naphtha. Naphtha is a solvent that has been used for years to remove various stains and grim; it is what gave rise to the dry cleaning industry.

That said, Ronsonol was purchased by Zippo around 2010 and I think they changed the formula from Naphtha to 'Hydrotreated Light Naphtha'. I have no idea what the delta is between these two, perhaps Hydrotreated Light Naphtha does not have the same solvent properties? Do we have any chemists here?

I have never seen it chemically bleach or whiten a stamp nor do I think that we often run into grim that would be cleaned by lighter fluid (I have seen it perhaps 2-3 times over the years).
Don

The grading companies could have done the hobby a service in defining the 100 and 100J differently on imperforate stamps. My opinion is the very maximum white margins in all equal largest proportions, without actually impinging the adjacent designs, should constitute the 100J. Any smaller then 100, 98J, etc.

This would lead to aesthetically more pleasing 100J's as they might appear more natural. Also, the average no margin examples would still be collectible at a discount.

As it is, the 100J monsters are Frankenstein in nature, and each one means up to 8 other donor stamps go in the trash bin (has anyone seen excessively impinged imperforate stamps on the market, ever?).

I will add that I am a proponent of grading in certain contexts. Just not this manner. It is really sad to see magnificent position pieces destroyed.

"Has anyone seen excessively impinged imperforate stamps on the market, ever?"
Yes. There is one right now in the Regency CHICAGOPEX sale, lot 1524, which used to be the top stamp of a rare pair, one of only 3 vertical pairs known. There have been others as well.
http://stampauctionnetwork.com/rs/rs12177.cfm

"...margins large to in at bottom"

An "in" margin? There are no limits to an auction house's puffery ...

I had to read that a couple of times before I realised that "in" meant no margin whatsoever!

Instead of grading, it is more like degrading for the stamp blocks that are ruined by this.

"In" is a less obvious way of saying "part of the design is missing". That way they can pretend it's only a tiny bit when it's really a whole lot.

Is there any responsibility for the grading companies to note when a stamp has been doctored for the specific purpose of achieving a higher grade? Do they have to disclose any known information at the time of their grading? These stamps all seem artificial to me serve no purpose but to achieve grading scores.

Why I think grading is useless…

Problem #1 - Grading is all over the board despite all attempts at trying to standardize it. Each vender applies what they think is the right approach. But this means what Scott catalog defines one way another catalog or EZGrader app does another way. What one seller calls 'VF' another seller calls 'F'. Without a universal consensus on grading nomenclature it is just about useless.

Problem #2 – Grading should encompass much more than simply 'eye appeal'. It has to also include stamp condition by identifying any faults or alternations. After all, I might have a stamp that visually is centered perfectly by this was done by rebacking the stamp. So grading has to be closely tied to verification of the entire stamp.

Problem #3 – It 'rewards' doing stupid things as outlined in this thread.

I would add that if I owned a stamp that had been cut from the sheet as shown by revcollector, but was done contemporaneously, I would be a bit upset with this thread. A stamp like that (i.e. tied to a document) would be quite something special and I would think it deserved a grade of 100. So to be legitimate it seems to me that a grade (like cancellations ) would have to be an actual contemporaneous use and not something artificially introduced after the fact. I doubt this is feasible in all cases so this also seems to be a dead end.

Over the years I have ignored grading and would never pay for such an opinion. If a stamp has eye appeal for me, if a stamp appears to me to be genuine in all respects, then I am interested. I view using grades as evil marketing puffery and not something that I choose to support. In fact, when I see grading included in an online listing it tends to make me avoid the seller altogether.
Don
APS #094826

Another leftover stamp, the description even says so. Lots 598, 601, 602. 601 and 602 are from the life insurance block, the other pair was in a past Modern sale as well, as was the companion to 598. Apparently some one bought some of the junk leftovers.

Please, if possible, excuse my ignorance for asking if anyone knows how much of the grading craze is driven by those who exibit and or are collectors or dealers with deep pockets and how much by pure investors who know little or nothing about philately but only what the graded cert tells them an item should be worth?

I said Modern in the post above; I should have said Downeast.

http://stampauctionnetwork.com/de/de30430.cfm#80