1875 Special Printings - Continental Bank Note Co.

I was reading up on these in the US Specialized Catalog. It says they were special printings for collectors, without gum, of stamps currently in use at the time. Question is, if they were currently available, why wouldn't collectors just buy the normal stamps for their collections? From what I read, they are identical except no gum. Something's missing to this story (besides the fact that all the special printings were cut apart by scissors).

Since the Special Printing were only available from the 3rd Assistant Postmaster General by mail (or in person, in the 3rd APG's office) most collectors did just that, which is why the Special Printings are scarce to rare

If I were collecter back then, I wouldn't see the point of buying the special printing given that I could just go to PO and get a normal one. Today, it would be like sending away for a non-adhesived Arnold Palmer forever stamp that is identical to one at the PO. Then when it arrives, hack it apart with scissors.

I see that the run of these special printings were only in the hundreds. Doesn't seem that the PO had any serious intention of making this a popular thing. The explanations in the literature don't seem to align with reality.

https://www.uspcs.org/resource-cent...e-chronicle/

Go here, enter Mooz, William in the Authored by search field, click search and read what he writes on the Special Printings, originally intended ( in part) for us "stamp gatherers".



Only the 1875 Special Printing was hacked apart, done trying to save time in preparing sets.

Thank you so much Littleriverphil! Fascinating article - this clears up a lot questions I had about this issue. The accounting analysis of numbers printed and Continental/American Bank Note Co. intermingling is interesting. The USPCS reference material lookup has now been bookmarked for me.