Cancel To Order - Why Are They Worth So Little

Still relatively newly returned to the hobby. Just curious why CTOs are so looked down on from a collectability stand point. My collection is predominantly pre 1975 but I do run into a fair amount of CTOs even trying to complete some of those years. Not that I really mind the low prices as it is a convenient low cost way to keep my granddaughter in really good looking stamps.

CTO stamps can be printed and cancelled without ever even being in the country that issued them. This feels more like someone is printing money and not a 'real' stamp to many collectors. A postally used stamp feels more legitimate to many folks.
Don

With many of these issues it is exceedingly rare to find a copy that was actually used on a letter.

CTO's are seen by some collectors as not truly valid issues, more or less. Mint and postally used issues had to be purchased at face value from the post office and thus they have or had an inherent value (i.e. they were a form of money, so to speak). CTO issues never had that inherent value and were created directly for sale to collectors; they were never a form of money. If there's one thing that many collectors despise, it's something that was actually created for collectors. That being said, if you don't mind CTO's, there's no reason not to collect them. They can certainly be an easy and inexpensive way to build a collection.

I have a large Russia collection. I cannot imagine trying to collect those stamps in mint NH condition and then cutting out thousands of mounts for them. So I buy CTO material for most of the modern era. No I am not building an investment, who cares? I'm having fun.

I collect Panama since I grew up there and lived there for 28 years. Many of their 1960's stamps were issued precancelled. I collect them mint, used, on cover and precancelled to get the full range of usage. For Panama, for every stamp that was precancelled they were also offered in post offices as well, but often small amounts and for a limited period of time. Finding them in mint or postally used or used on cover is a fun challenge when the precancels are more predominantly found.

Exactly. I don't seek out CTO's, but I will save them if they turn up in some lot I purchase and if I need them for my collection. I will replace them with a mint copy or a neatly cancelled postally used copy if one comes along, but I've probably got a couple thousand or so CTO issues scattered amongst my collections.

Well, I believe there is a difference between precanceled stamps and CTO's. I have no trouble whatsoever with precanceled stamps - they are meant to be used on the mails. CTO's may be used on the mail; the ones that are not meant to be used is what I refer to as wallpaper.

Peter

I believe that smauggie used 'precancelled' in the literal-functional sense, and not the philatelic sense.

Inartfully stepping on a term of art, so to speak.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

To answer the original question as to why they are worth so little - it's because there are millions & millions of them. Oversupply - under-demand = worthless.

Thanks all for the replies. Guess as the majority of my collection is esthetic I will just let them look nice filling pages in the albums and being a good grampa keeping a couple of grandchildren interested in the hobby.

I wonder if CTO's cost less to produce than regular mint stamps. Otherwise, they would have sold them as mint.

For me, mint is somewhere between CTO's and cancelled, because only cancelled stamps were actually a postage item, while mint and FDC never served their purpose, to transfer a letter from A to B.

Speaking of CTO's, if they worth less then cancelled, how can I know that a cancelled stamp that I trade isn't a soaked CTO?

CTO's would cost more - you take the mint stamps & then apply a cancellation, it's an extra step in the production line.




In some cases you can't. If you look at the average genuinely used stamp the cancellation will be a bit grungy, heavy, smeared, maybe not quite legible, whereas CTO's tend to be nice & crisp. For communist countries most used are in fact CTO.

.
... and the CTOs tend to have one perfect circular city-date-stamp shared by four adjacent stamps ...

... the perfect quarter-circle cancel in just one corner, with no 'killer' lines, is a dead CTO giveaway.




To whom? They almost always produced more than enough mint & CTO to drown any market.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

See my post at:

https://goscf.com/t/53589

for another slant on ths question.

Interesting thread. My vote would be postally used but I just kinda liked the stamps. (and I just learned how to quote)