Wow! Somebody Got Creative...

Revenuermd,
1) Best I can tell, all the examples in this thread, including yours, involve some miscreant altering a stamp in order to fool a buyer into thinking the stamp was of higher quality or a more valuable stamp or variety; this is a fraudulent practice. This is not ethically equivalent to someone cutting an imperforate multiple to yield a better single or better singles. In this second scenario, the person has no intent to deceive anyone; they just want to optimize their holding, esthetically and/or financially. Market forces and collecting habits have always favored single stamps over multiples. Since it is possible to fashion singles of optimized quality from imperforate multiples, this practice is almost as old as stamp collecting itself and it will continue. If you would condemn this practice, would you also condemn someone who destroyed a 1970's plate block by breaking it up into singles to use for postage because it turned out to have more value to that person in that form?
2) The practice ("alteration with intent to deceive") described in the first scenario of 1) is fraud and should be condemned. There can be productive discourse about the appropriateness and prudence of the practice ("optimizing a multiple") described in the second scenario of 1), but your conflation of the two scenarios is not logical. Your blaming of grading for the "fraudulent" practice just because it sometimes has been a factor in the "optimizing" practice is even more of a stretch.
3) All the graded collectors I know collect stamps with graded certificates. They do not collect graded certificates sans stamps.
4) If you are going to institute "grade-shaming", please send a scarlet letter my way. I have a few examples in my collection of large margin imperforate graded singles that I am sure were created by cutting down imperforate multiples. And I know for a fact (from a previous certificate) that my graded #5A was once part of a pair.
5) There are a lot of problems in this world. Grading stamps did not create all of them. In particular, it had nothing to do with the examples of fraud cited in this thread.

Rhett,

I would challenge your one statement that "market forces and collecting habits have always favored single stamps over multiples."

1. Students engaged in plating studies require multiples and large multiples at that. Destruction of these large multiples renders these classic research studies impossible.
2. The destruction of largest recorded multiples for financial gain renders such sites as The Curtis Collection as meaningless.
3. My own studies of proprietary stamps and why certain size used multiples exist and others do not correlates very nicely with traditional commercial packaging practices. The destruction of multiples for financial gain renders such studies impossible.

I betray my interest in uncovering the backstory and context of how revenue stamps were used. I write about those backstories. I exhibit at the local, national, and international levels and those insights not only excite the juries, but the viewing public as well. While my experience is with revenue stamps, the same insights hold for postage stamps as well. For the most part, postal history trumps traditional exhibiting today.

Would you soak off high graded stamps, so you can put them in your album? Would you separate a used stamp from a block just so you can put it in your published album that only has a space for a single?

While I do not know its current status, the largest multiple of RB16c is an irregular block of 5. Clearly this could be separated into five singles and the rarity of this stamp in general would probably fetch more than the multiple price and make four more collections more complete than previously. But the largest recorded multiple would be gone forever. The destruction of the largest recorded multiple would be a philatelic crime to my way of thinking. And the dealer who sold that multiple to a collector made sure that the value in knowledge embedded in the multiple was understood. Do not break up the multiple. To be sure, breaking up the multiple would not be not fraud, but a crime nonetheless.

Should I soak an imported opium stamp off an original tin so I can put it in an album? That tin was on display at the National Postal Museum during the first year of the opening of the Gross Gallery, a courtesy for my work as a guest curator of the revenue section. The comments I received from high power postage stamp collectors I think would render its removal a philatelic crime.

This ethical problem underlies many aspects of philately. At its core is the issue of 'what is good for me' vs. 'what is good for the hobby'.

One side can easily argue that a person has a right to do whatever they want with their own personal property. A hobbyist clearly has the right to light cigars with their stamps if they desire. The other side can argue that we are only stewards of the material we currently own and have a much greater responsibility and context.

This same ethical issue can be seen when it comes to who we choose to support with our purchases. This forum has plenty of posts from folks who maintain that they have no issues with supporting dealers who clearly are damaging the hobby. As long as they can personally benefit from a purchase they do not consider any greater responsibility.

And this same ethical challenge surrounds us in many other ways. I can buy property on the top of a mountain, clear it of all trees, and build my house on it; forever altering the view for everyone else. Or Hollywood movie maker can buy a very rare car and destroy it in the filming of a movie.

There is no clear answer for this ethical dilemma. I would like to think that most of us work in the context of what is best for everyone; but reality is that people will often have a much more selfish perspective.
Don

No matter how large certain margins may be, it is best for a stamp that is imperforate, especially if perforated versions of it exist, for it to be in at least an imperforate pair or larger multiple like strip, block, etc. Anything else, I would question including any single with parts deliberately cut off of all of the surrounding stamps. For imperforates and coils, the time honoured phliatelic tradition of collecting them in at least pairs should still be applied and requested, especially by judges judging exhibits.

So what will you do when you have stamps where singles unquestionably exist but pairs do not?

State "only singles are known to exist" since there is no choice in the matter and get a certificate with this point in it. If unique, then it is unique too.

What you have then is a mess. Even Amos Media (Scott Catalogue) is insanely inconsistent as to how they treat imperfs with no known multiples.

I lobbied for the inclusion of the 2nd issue 25-cent and 50-cent imperforate stamps to be included in the revenue listings, submitting both my examples (both with PF certs) as well as census data for other known examples of both. Additionally, if a stamp is known with sewing machine perforations, it must BY DEFINITION, exist as an imperforate stamp. Now, arguments can be made as to whether imperfs made it out to the public and still exist, but that is a different argument. For example, the R120 sewing machine perf is incredibly rare in its own right (fewer than 4 examples known at this point) and an imperf has never been reported.

So Scott listed the 25-cent imperf, but not the 50-cent... which made no sense at all. When I inquired, they then proceeded to delist the 25-cent. When I pressed, I was told that their policy was to not list imperforate or part perforate stamps unless there were known multiples... at which point my head exploded.

I promptly informed them, that if this is their litmus test, then R11a, R13a, R77a, and R80a needed to be removed from the catalog, as there are no known multiples of any of them. The response: crickets chirping.

When I told Richard about their delisting the 25-cent imperf and their justification, he uttered several 4-letter words and said he would have a talk with them; I don't know whether that "talk" transpired.

This is similar, in my opinion to the inconsistent manner double impressions vs. kiss impressions are defined and treated between front of book and back of book material.

revenuecollector: Unfortunately for some listings in some catalogues, there is a disconnect between the specialists of an issue and the editors of the catalogue while for other issues this is not the case and the issue is accurately represented and covered. It all depends on which issues the specialist and dealers that are connected to the catalogue are covering and which they are not.

Revenues have been a poor stepchild for Scott for a very long time. Most of the catalog beyond the booklet panes section is treated as "the other side of the tracks".

I recently tried to start a discussion about revenues on laid paper but for the most part, the revenuers would have nothing of it. So it isn't just the catalogue editors that neglect or are inconsistent with certain issues.

Your scan was insufficient to prove laid paper. As I said at the time, it appeared to be something picked up from a document usage. Something like laid paper must be seen in person.

Oh, please, you're comparing apples and bowling balls. "Revenuers would have nothing of it" is a complete mischaracterization of that discussion. You're upset because the consensus of experienced revenue collectors didn't align with yours.

Until the PF (or other respected expertizing body with respect to U.S. revenues) certifies an example as being on laid paper, there aren't any confirmed examples on laid paper. That's all.

No Dan, I am not upset. I wanted a discussion not confirmation. In order for anybody to agree with me they would first have to be open to the idea. I am not sure if we can past that first step.

Rev, I agree that the stamp would have to be examined.

I wouldn't characterize the few comments as a consensus of anything.

Revenuermd, my statement that you quoted and challenged was admittedly colored by my experience in my narrow collecting area but it does apply to the issue you were discussing. As to your questions about soaking or separating stamps to place as singles in my collection, I might do those things under certain rare conditions. I do not anticipate doing them.
Don, great job of describing this issue; your post is the perfect exemplification of what I meant by " productive discourse about the appropriateness and prudence of the practice". My own feeling is that the correct action to take is situational. In my collecting scope, this dilemma arises in two eras. For early 20th century imperforates (except for great rarities), I have no qualms about someone cutting up a multiple to create a large margin single. I have never done this myself but I have procured some of these creations for my collection. These imperforate multiples are generally plentiful; supply far exceeds demand. The 1851-56 issue imperforates are a different matter to me. When I bought my #5A, for example, I fully examined the previous certificate when it was a member of a pair and determined that neither stamp was sacrificed in any way when the pair was split. I also did not believe any research or historical value was lost by splitting this pair. I consider my views in these two eras to be a reasonable approach; others are of course free to disagree.
Jogil, early 20th Century coils and imperforates were once collected in pairs instead of singles only because they could not be certified as singles. Now that technology and expertise has improved to the point that such singles can be easily and reliably certified, I believe it makes no sense to collect every other stamp in a collection scope as a single and collect these few coils and imperforates as pairs. Where is the logic in that? I believe a singles collection should be a singles collection to the greatest extent that is possible. For these early 20th century coils and imperforates, your "time honoured philatelic tradition" is no more than a habit necessitated by past circumstance and currently perpetuated by album makers.