Se-Tenant Stamps Issued By The USPS

The post office is increasing its production of joined stamps so they'll be sold for collecting only, and sometimes issuing whole sheets. I've been saving them as separate stamps. Am I alone in this?

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

No, you are not alone in this. If you are a regular reader of this forum you would read several posts here folks are asking about album pages for individual stamps. The se-tenant stamps are nice if is there is a reason for it ( like the space walk ) but it gets ridiculous when it is done to sell more stamps,

Peter

Thanks. I'm not a regular reader, although I hope to become one; I'm a new reader and so I'll probably be asking questions covering overploughed ground, ALAS .

Welcome sleepy! One thing to remember with stamp collecting is that there is no wrong way to collect stamps. However you like to do it, whether it's individual stamps or blocks or sheets or whatever, is the way YOU do it.

You may find you will need to make your own album pages, but that's very easily done today.

Again, welcome to the forum!

Hi Sleepy,

I too collect them as individual stamps - used. For many of them I also collect the joined ones in mint/unused.

And sometimes it is difficult to get all the individual stamps in used condition. Sometimes I'll have several duplicates of one and none of another stamp from a particular issue.

Dave N.

Hi Sleepy,

I just collect whatever the MYSTIC album calls for. Most people on this forum know I am not a fan of today's USPS stamps. Once a year, I order the annual supplement and the stamps thereto. Of course, I head to the P/O to see what's available first. Its an odious chore but I do it merely to keep my USA collection current. At one time I was over thirty years behind. Never again!

Jack Kelley

This may be slightly off the topic, but its certainly related. Yhe 1995 Civil War stamps were all on one sheet.


Anyway, my problem's that the Scott National doesn't have a place for the individual stamps, even though they were sold as individual as well as the sheet.
So, since I collect only used stamps, I have to fabricate a sheet to accomodate these individual stamps, and also most dealers don't carry them.

Isn't this in the wrong forum? The USPS did not exist in the classic pre-1940 period, correct? And the USPOD did not issue se-tenants in the classic pre-1940 period, did they? Just confused why this is in this forum.

Technically there were some se-tenants issued before 1940, they were type variety pairs rather then totally different designs. 261/261A, 265/266, 276/276A, 282c/283, and 599/599A come to mind immediately.

And of course the 1851 one and ten cent issues if one really gets down to it.

Is there a market for used sheets? I mean, you could just mail an envelope to yourself. Just curious.

Jack Kelley

Mail it to myself and have the post office ruin it with their solid black cancellation ?

Sleepy, if you talk to the clerk at the post office sometimes they will obey the regulations in the Domestic Mail Manual and handstamp a letter for you. If you ask nicely for a hand cancel they will usually do it,

Peter

Peter, I agree that postal clerks will usually carefully handstamp a letter for their customers. I do recall one instance where the clerk in my local PO did exactly that at my request. Unfortunately, someone at a post office between there and the destination thought the cancel was either too light or not present and pretty much clobbered it.
John

Type variety pairs are not se-tenant stamps under the longstanding definition of that term. A true se-tenant issue involves conscious planning for concurrent issue of adjacent stamps with different designs, colors or denominations, often to illustrate different features of a common theme. They are intentional from he earliest stage of he planning process. Type variety pairs are not planned as such.

In the modern era of postage for collectors it is often to illustrate different features of a common theme. Originally in the days of the Postmaster's Provisionals it was just to save space.
Combination pairs still involve two different designs and two different catalog numbers, and are at least closely related. Most combinations are much scarcer then all but those few Provisional "real" se-tenant issues in any case.