When Does Bad Centering Become A Good Thing? 90c US 122

Earlier this year I bought this copy of US 122 (the 90c pictorial):




I'd be interested in general thoughts about this stamp (is it reperfed?), but the price was pretty low ($265 on ebay) and so I'm okay with my purchase whatever problems there are. However, one thing I knew made the stamp relatively inexpensive was the extreme off-centering, enough to show part of the adjacent stamp.

In fact it was the worst centered copy of Scott 122 (out of many hundreds) I'd ever seen, though I'm sure others have more experience. Then I found this on the USPhila.com site from a 2010 Siegel auction:



The hammer price in this case was $10000 (ten thousand dollars), and the stamp was described by Siegel as 'an unusual production variety and especially desirable with red cancel, ex Bechtel.' The full entry is at http://www.usphila.com/us/stamp/pri...-122-page-16 It must be among the most expensive off-cover used copies of 122 ever sold.

Now I can see lots of differences between the Siegel copy and mine. Crucially, more of the adjacent stamp is shown because of the 'jumbo' vertical height; the provenence from Bechtel; the desirable cancel. Not to mention issues of condition. But I am a bit non-plussed by the huge price difference.

So my question is: when does poor centering, particularly on the high-value pictorials, become bad enough to justify a substantial premium? Is my humble copy bad enough to be good?

That stamp fetched the strong price largely because of the red cancel which is generally rare as the sole cancel on a 90c 1869 issue stamp. Plus, two collectors are very aggressive seeking red cancels these days.

Your stamp would not do well at a real auction .....

(add-on edit) The Bill Ainsworth collection had a VF centered example with a red cancel that brought $9,000 (plus 20%) when sold at auction by Spink in 2009. Stamp is on the page here:
http://www.rfrajola.com/features/BAweb/p40.JPG

On the Siegel copy, I'm assuming its also likely an NYFM cancel, given the high denomination and colored geometric.

Cancel is a circle of wedges, as described in the listing.

Thanks for these helpful replies. I had thought the red cancel might be the main reason for the massive premium, but a quick look shows that the maximum price for a good red cancel on a reasonably well copy seems to be about $1700. Certainly a premium, but not enough to explain the $10000. So I do think someone took Siegel's talk of a 'production variety' seriously in a way that I find surprising. Incidentally, I'd be curious if anyone knows anything about the cancellation on the stamp I have.

In the 2007-2008 sales period Siegel sold several red canceled 122's for the same or more money than the off centered example. A sign of the times and some collectors desires?

https://siegelauctions.com/lot_grd....mitNext=Next

Maybe I should take a chance with this one...




Meets all the prerequisites...off center...red cancel.

When one is collecting a particular stamp, or issue, specialization will lead you into getting all different kinds of cancellations, on and off cover.

With the 90c stamp not being that common to start with, its easy to understand how cancellation varieties on it of any sort can be prized. This is particularly true when more than one person at a time is trying to build such a collection - or when different collections have an intersecting interest.

Can just two or three dealer buyers drive up the price of a stamp and how long does that last?

Dealers have to make a profit, so driving up a price is potentially dangerous. Some dealers might do that to another dealer if they have a lot of experience, but usually they bid up to where they can still make enough profit to make it worth it.

Personally, I think it likely that most of the higher auction prices for red-cancelled 90c pictorials are coming from individuals, perhaps only a couple of keen bidders--as Richard Frajola suggested in his initial reply to my query.

What I still don't understand, though, is that in the particular case of the 2010 item really awful centering still commanded among the highest prices anyone has found.

Is the lesson that red cancels on this issue are so precious that they completely trump all other aspects of eye appeal? (I know this happens with rare fancy cancels.) Or did bidders in 2010 accept that they were getting something special in the way of what Siegel called 'an unusual production variety'? As I read the Siegel description, the auctioneers at least seem to have seen the perforations cutting through the design so badly as the most significant selling point--with the red cancel seen as an important plus. I'd still like to know how bad centering/misperforation on c19th US stamps has to be before it is seen as any kind of advantage.

in my opinion the orange cancel example has appeal for that large portion of adjoining stamp and it appears also to be jumbo sized showing the 90 cent numerals almost complete 4 times.

moosewood - I suspect you are not getting too many direct responses to your original question because there is probably no universally accepted criteria to what you are asking. There is a fuzzy line between 'off-centered' (in the negative sense) and 'freak' (in the positive sense). I've wondered the same, myself. My personal experience: when a dealer is buying, it is off-centered, and when he is selling, it is a freak. I kid when I say that, but only partly. Decades ago, I bought a 'freak' and when I went to the same dealer years later to unload it, he said it was poorly centered and wouldn't get away from that assessment. I suppose, like beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder. Sorry I am not more help.

FWIW - I would expect anybody selling your #122 would market it as a freak. I would also expect a fairly healthy percentage of buyers to agree - with a few conservative buyers/collectors disagreeing. These people simply wouldn't be the ideal target market for the stamp.

I would not call the original stamp a freak, just badly off center. The adjoining stamp area would have to be at least twice as large and possibly even three times before freak would apply. At least to me.

Just think of how many similarly off center brothers and sisters from the same sheet the 122 has.

Actually we don't know; there was a certain amount of perf drift on sheets in those days. A few columns at least.