Scott #505 Error - Best Way To Collect

Working on filling out the stamp collection left to me by my father. Unfortunately he was pretty good and did a great job of filling in most of the stamps for me. But there are a few gems he left for me to find! So that leads me to the blank space titled #505-ERROR!! I understand the stamp and what it is, but what's the best way to collect this and show it? Is just to get the single 5 cent stamp or would it be better to collect the sheet to show how the error related to the 2 cent stamps on the sheet? What are the experts opinion?

You often see this as a block of 9 (3x3) with the 5 cent in the middle. Some folks collect it as a pair or strip, others just collect as a single.

The whole sheet would be an excellent find, but pretty scarce I expect.

Did he already have the 467? If so, I collect the 505 in the same format.

Mine is in a se-tenant pair with the 499.

Batessa, all the above are ok, and there is no "correct" way to collect it. I'm assuming the album you are looking to fill the hole in is for a single; which can be purchased. (Highly recommend only buying a single with a cert for this particular stamp.) I've not searched for these lately, so going off of memory, but a single stamp w/cert would run about $400; from there, se-tenant pairs or strips of three with the 5 cent in the middle are more, and a 3-stamp x 3-stamp sheet in the $1,000 + range. I've seen all of the above come and go on ebay and Hipstamp though.

Really just depends on what your budget will allow for and how you'd like to display it and of course your personal preferences though.

Good question though. Made me realize I need to look for one; definitely missing both the 5 cent W/F errors.

I have 505 error in a block of 12 (two 5 cent errors), a linked pair, and a single. All are mint, never or lightly hinged. Have not seen any of this issue used. I all depends on how much you want to spend, how your collection is organized, and what pleases your eye.

There is no "would run about" price. A MNH Fine single catalogs $300 and a VF single catalogs $625. It drives me bonkers when people assign one size fits all values to stamps. If the centering sucks you should get a "deal" but that all depends. There are loads of the blocks on ebay but almost all are poorly centered and overpriced. It is much more difficult to find a nicely centered fault free single, pair or strip of three then it is a block. A poorly centered (Fine or F-VF) double block should go for about 40% of catalog. The blocks with nicely centered singles have mostly been broken in order to extract the single or pair that goes for full catalog or more.

They are around used.

Very nice Alub. Used examples can be difficult to find.

467 singles are also difficult to find, at least in my experience. Don't think I've seen one, in fact.

They are around. Century has a strip of three and two singles in their latest catalog.

I will echo andyrich, there is no "correct" way.

That said, one logical path is to seek a 505 which is consistent with the other items on that page (or the other color errors as kcaramat suggests). In other words, what is it going next to in your collection? You have to please yourself not anyone else - whether you seek mint or used, singles or larger multiples, etc. You are the expert on defining the scope of your own collection.

Don't forget about the 485 ! That is a really scarce one.

"Collect however you want," is true but useless advice. Collectors generally collect these in blocks of 9 for a single error or blocks of 12 when there are 2 adjacent errors. This is the "best" way to collect these stamps in the same way that pairs is the "best" way to collect pre-PNC coils.

Phil - Why is it that blocks are the best way?

"Collect however you want" is the right advice. I personally have only a small U. S. singles collection and it makes no logical sense to me to suddenly shift to collecting pairs of the early coils instead of singles. You see, it is a SINGLES collection. To me it is beyond illogical to select a small subset of stamps in a singles collection to NOT collect as singles, unless some issue did not exist as a single. But others may feel differently about that; it is entirely up to the collector to set their collection scope as desired. BTW, 50 years ago it was necessary to collect the early U. S. coils in pairs to avoid fakes since the expertizing agencies of that era had no way to definitely determine the fakes from the reals on singles of the early coils. So in recognition of that fact all the catalog and album makers went to pairs in their publications for those early coils. Now, decades since the expertizing agencies have obtained the technology and expert ability to discern truth from fakery on singles of these stamps, we still have in the marketplace catalogs that list these early U. S. coils in pairs and albums with spaces for them in pairs. Which is fine with me since I don't have to adhere to that scheme in my collection scope. Again, collectors should decide what they want to collect and how they want to collect it. End of rant.