1883 Series 100 Cigar Stamp... Keep Or Sell?

HI folks...

I just did a little cleaning up of various items in a forgotten oversize-envelope, and now I'm in a quandary...

YEARS ago I purchased a Series 1883 100-Cigar stamp. According to a note from the seller the catalog number is TC123A. Now, it is a NICE looking stamp, great engraving and the condition is nice (well, to me, anyway).

Thing is, since it is so darn long, it lives in this cardboard mailer /envelope, never seen or appreciated.

And so the question is: should it stay or should it go?

I know I won't get rich selling it, so why bother? THEN AGAIN, maybe someone with better storage/display methods could enjoy it.

Thoughts?

(it's too large for my scanner!)

These taxpaid strips are frequently found with faults due to their size. What you have is in exceptionally nice condition. I'm guessing it would bring around $20-$25 on ebay.

More than I thought! Of course, BECAUSE it is rather nice, I'd like to KEEP IT... dunno, just don't know...

;-)

I agree, this is a really nice example. Keep it, it can only add to a collection.

I use an old school accounting ledger book for these. The pages are 8.5 by 19"

i cant sell anything? why would you sell it unless you had a better one maybe? I have never seen one so thank you for sharing the photos of it. It's huge! Now I want one!

It's a stunner! Enjoy it.

I'll take the opposite opinion, and say that if you don't feel it fits in your collecting focus, and you won't pay much attention to it, you may as well sell it to someone who will appreciate & display it more, so they can enjoy it. And then you can take the money from the sale and buy something for yourself you'd appreciate better. Win win.

GMOT - I was all set to keep it UNTIL I read your post! ;-)

Now that I have seen it again... it is DARN nice... it does have a nice clear plastic sleeve, I wonder if I could just tape it to the wall here by my computer! It doesn't get any direct sun, so it wouldn't get damaged... Hmmmmmmm....

I decided to do a multi-part scan and paste them together for folks interested in what this particular stamp looks like. I had to use a lower quality JPEG to get it below the MAX file size, but here it is.

Direct or indirect, artificial or sunlight will fade the stamp. UV resistant protection required.

Henry Clay is fascinating history.

Hi Nells,

Here is something to consider when you admire your cigar taxpaid stamp.

These long strip stamps were intentionally designed to be torn into two or more pieces when the buyer opened the box of cigars. There exists some unused "remainder" copies that were never actually applied to a box, but these are fairly uncommon.

In the case of an actually used example without being torn in two, such as yours with the purple cancellation, someone, somewhere literally soaked a brand new box of cigars in a bucket of water, just to remove this taxpaid stamp in one piece.

Clearly, this practice almost certainly ruined at least some of the cigars within the box. The only other possibility is that the box was carefully torn apart before the stamp was soaked off.

Just something to think about regarding the "value" of undamaged taxpaid stamps, such as yours.

Jim

@Nells250, well, certainly if you find that you now enjoy it, then by all means keep it! My view is probably coloured by the fact I'm trying to narrow my currently far too vast collecting scope into an actual focus...

Now that the better scan has been posted, it does appear to have been torn on the right hand side just to the left of Clay's picture.

James & 1typesetter - this is JUST for you! ;-)




The "busy" design and the almost perfect match to the strip on the back made me miss the NOW obvious "tear"!!!