Another Butchered Imperf Fetching Too Much Money

I've seen it on perforated stamps too. I would never pay for it or do it myself. The grading companies if they had ethics would not permit it either. I would think that they could grade a block without needing to butcher the other stamps even if one was damaged. They could grade a single out and then grade the block separately.

Since half the US expertising companies are profit making enterprises, they will never do so. And so the other half have to go along to keep their share of the market.

"Even sillier is 2 lots down (Lot 80) is an imprint plate block of 6, intact might I add with an opening of $25.00 less. The logic here is mind blowing."

$25 stamp surgeon amputation fee

Perhaps the cert should say "Block of 9, grade 1"

Agree. 1 stamp grade 100, 8 stamps grade -10 = negative 80 points.

100
-80
———————
20 overall grade

"Overall grade 20." Funny, but essentially true!

But it is a shame good material is being wasted and destroyed. It reminds me of stuff like printers waste.

Beauty is obviously in the eye of the beholder but I actually think it looks ugly and, value or grading aside, but purely for aesthetic purposes, I would not want that in my album. I'll take the imprint block any day, or one "normal" looking imperf single. Just my 2c.

I can't even imagine it.

I looked through the Golden Oak auction a day or two ago and noticed the same thing. I have learned to expect this type of material from certain auction houses. I don't think it is coincidence. On the flip side, I have noticed many 2/3 stamps being sold by Downeast Stamps - a #9 with the left 1/3 missing, the next lot being a #9 with the right side 1/3 missing. 'Tall' stamps. Both lots cancelled in the same city. Well, duh!!! It is only a little more effort to go to Kelleher/Siegel/whatever and find the super-jumbo graded (98-100J, of course) middle stamp of the ex-strip-of-three. I have seen this with probably each of the 1851 values - maybe not the 5c.

I have been in the hobby for 45-50 years. I NEVER saw this in my early stamp life. No grading companies = no butchering to make imperf 'jumbos'.

And, yes, it is completely ludicrous when a 100J imperf exceeds the value of a block of 6 (with margin) or 9. The problem is that there is a market for these 'stamputees' (thanks for the new term!). If the market didn't make the butchering of 8 stamps to get one 'gem' economically feasible, it would happen much less. The problem is that some people have more dollars than sense (cents), and don't realize that paying 10x CV for a 100J imperf is stupid when they could go out and get the block of 9 for less. Buy a block of 9 with faults on any stamp(s) but the center stamp, and you pay MUCH less. It is too bad the grading companies won't grade the center stamp only in a block of 6 or 9.

If this stamp were offered for sale at a reasonable price, with no grading certificate, would no one be interested in?

I understand that many people do not want to support the 'grading incentive' and its associated 'Frankenstamp' making but underlying this practice is the demand for well centered stamps.

So even if the grading organizations were to stop issuing graded stamps would not the demand for well centered stamps continue to drive the making of 'Frankenstamps'? (With the proliferation of hundreds of thousands of 'hobbyists turned dealers' it seems to me that there would not be a shortage of those who would be willing cut up multiples.)

The formalization of this practice is the organizations that issue grades but perhaps the real culprit is staring at us in the mirror. (That the majority of us desire well centered stamps.)
Don

Even more confounding is that their are twenty one mint (zero used copies) 100J's in the PSE Population Report for this common stamp. Do all twenty one have adjacent stamps showing? I do not know but given the supply AND the ability to readily produce your own jumbo it is puzzling why anybody would buy this particular monster.

Note: As of now there are no bids. It stands at its opening price.

I recall seeing a set of Natural Parks Imperfs cut-up in that manner in the mid-80s. That was long before grading.

They existed long before the 80's, although there were far less of them. I can recall occasionally seeing that kind of jumbo at the Armory ASDA shows as a boy.

It seems to be a very American thing to fixate on size.

This seems to be mainly a discussion of why someone cutting up an imperf block into one remaining stamp with parts of the other stamps attached is a truly terrible thing. Okay.

I think it's silly, and you think it's silly - because it ruins the other stamps. But beyond that, so what? I ruin sheets of stamps all the time by removing stamps from the sheet. To mail a letter. Have I done something bad by doing that? Someone had an imperf block and decided to cut off most of the adjoining stamps to create this fairly weird-looking stamp with parts of the other stamps still attached. I have no idea why, and it doesn't appeal to me, but it also doesn't rise to any serious level of shock or outrage, as far as I'm concerned. There it is. Bid on it or don't bid on it. I mean, really, who cares?

It was once the practice to cut stamps in half diagonally to pay lower postage costs. Do we throw those out, too?

Perfins have a substantial part of each stamp removed to punch out the initials. Throw those away.

Grills on 19th century stamps significantly damaged those stamps. Worthless.

Lots of 19th century imperfs (and maybe some modern ones, too) got a ham-handed treated by some postal clerk who cut a stamp out of the sheet and clipped off part of a neighboring stamp in the process. Throw those away.

Some of the rarest stamps in the world get sold from time to time at auction, and what does the wealthy new owner do to them? He stamps or handwrites his initials on the back of the stamp. That outrages me a lot more than trimming a block of stamps down.

I'm not bothered by some guy trying to create a strange-looking stamp with parts of neighboring stamps attached. The idea that the block has been "butchered" is emotionally over the top. That it's "fetching too much money" is no one's business but the buyer. It's only too much money if you don't want it -- or if you want it, but can't afford it.