Two Old Italian Stamps In Which Condition?

Hello,

I found these two stamps which appear unused to me. But how do you see the back of the stamps? There seems to be some gum remaining, but not totally ("of course" for the age?).

So would they be seen as "mint"? And what about the wrinkles (not creases!) of the right one?

thank you!

They are far from mint. The most optimistic descriptions I could give are:

Blue stamp:
Unused, no original gum, small part regummed, hinge affixed, purple ink transfer on back from document or album page, stain at bottom and few foxing spots on front, few short perfs, otherwise Fine.

Red stamp:
Unused, large part disturbed original gum resulting in overall wrinkling, hinge affixed, blue ink transfer on back from document or album page, few foxing spots on front, several pulled or short perfs, otherwise Average.

"Disturbed" gum can have many causes. The stamp could have been stored in a glassine in a humid location that caused the gum to partly dissolve and flow followed by a change back to dry conditions that caused the gum to cure again. Or it could have been affixed to an oily substrate so that part of the gum dissolved but did not adhere to the substrate and then cured, then soaked off by dissolving in water just the parts of the gum that are missing.

It's possible the blue stamp is used with a very light or washed cancel.

Chris

Yes far from mint. Certainly wouldn't advertise as such if selling. Most of what Chris says about condition can be seen from the scans. I would add probably a thin on the the blue as well.

thank you very much for the detailed explanations. I don't want to sell them, but would you buy them :) ?
Now I know much more about the condition, no doubt. But I thought at the beginning that often the gum is not complete and still it's kind of mint. And the wrinkling could perhaps be repaired with some thick books on it. (that's what I thought at the beginning) I didn't do anything with the stamps, just like I found them.

I'd keep them if I had them, but I shouldn't actively seek to purchase them. You won't improve the cracked gum. It might actually look better with the stamp soaked and the gum removed.

Yes I also thought that it would look better soaked. But what would be the definition then - "unused without gum", but this I don't find as a definition in Scott or Michel catalogue for this stamp?

In most cases, catalogues don't price stamps without gum. They're described in various ways by auctioneers, and I think practice varies between the UK and the US. Here they'd be described as "unused" (as opposed to unmounted or mounted mint) or "mint no gum".

Say you have an vintage car. The original 60 year old paint looks bad; faded, plenty of scratches, chips, and a few dents. Do you repaint the car or leave the original paint? If the car is extremely rare, you leave the paint and the originality. You might find a restorer who can bring back the original paint the best it can be and leave it at that. But if the car is not rare and you want to drive it and enjoy the car, you repaint the car.

If the gum and wrinkles bothers you on these common stamps; soak them in clear, clean water and then press them in a drying book.
Don

thank you for the interesting comparison, that's quite good, Don. (although I am no car expert)

Well, I thought that unused stamps from that time are not common. I looked now further in some catalogues and found the red one to be very expensive (if it was mint).

You are correct that the 2016 Scott catalog values the 40c carmine stamp at $6,500 as mint (hinged or mounted), but this is based upon certain assumptions as to condition. The valuation presumes Very Fine centering and nearly perfect gum condition, except that hinging is allowed because everyone did it decades ago for these early stamps. Your stamp is not in this condition.

One rule of thumb that others on this forum use for valuation is to deduct 50% of catalog value for every fault. With this rule, I would value the stamp as follows:

$6500 X 0.50 for centering X 0.50 for wrinkling X 0.50 for gum condition X 0.50 for perf condition = $406

Then $406 becomes a possible retail price under ideal bargaining situations. The problem is a buyer has to accept the condition of your stamp and most who want a mint stamp would hold out for better condition. This stamp would be considered a "space filler" for the collector of mint stamps. A US retail dealer might offer the stamp at $250 knowing that it is a tough sell and in an online auction it might fetch $100 on a really good day.

Chris

Thank you Chris, that's really good help. To get back to the car example of Don and the idea of soaking by GeoffHa, you probably wouldn't change anything of the stamp's condition, would you? Or could experts make anything about the stamp to improve the condition (wrinkling)?

If I was a dealer, I would probably offer it as-is, to test the market, since it remains an uncommon stamp in unused condition. If there were no takers, then I would do as Don suggested, resulting in an unused no gum stamp (for the US) or mint no gum (for Europe) stamp. I do not think expert repair is worthwhile. First, it would cost more money; second, the likely fix would be exactly as Don says, possibly followed by regumming or addition of perf tips; third, ethically all such repairs must be disclosed to the buyer and their existence would further reduce the buyer pool. I do not think the face wrinkling can be remedied without soaking off the crackled gum on the back, because I believe that the crackled gum is the mechanical cause of the face wrinkling. Obviously this is a guess since I haven't inspected the stamp.

Chris

thank you very much. I don't have plans to sell it very soon, but at least I know now better what I have here.

If the 40c example was mine, I'd guess that the gum is probably not going to make things any worse right now, so I would let it ride. Echoing cjpalermo1964, the stamp isn't in hand, so that's a guess and not a certainty.

Unfortunately, the perfs cutting into the design, while common for the issue, make the initial CV practically irrelevant. Scott includes a note in the listings where they forgive difficult centering in their pricing. For better or worse (depending on whether you are a glass half full or glass half empty sort), this stamp started out life as something close to a space filler, so it didn't have as far to fall.

If I needed to fill that space, I'd definitely keep it until a better example fell into my lap.

Hello, thanks - just a question, I didn't get this part because of language understanding: the Scott says that the CV is given for stamps which are not centered perfectly, right? But you say then that the perfs cutting into the design (=bad centering) makes the initial CV irrelevant - this doesn't fit in my understanding. So if the bad centering isn't so important for the CV, it would just not change the CV?

The centering of your stamp is much worse than what Scott is willing to forgive as part of the CV.

Chris