Perforated Vs Imperforate: Preferences?

Hi all!

I've seen that many stamps, particularly souvenir sheets and the like, are available either perforated or imperforate, so I'd like to ask: when faced with the option do you generally choose one over the other? Whichever? Both for the sake of completion? Do you only collect imperforate, perhaps? What guides your choice?

Personally, as an aesthetic collector, I will choose the perforated stamp every time. No serious philatelic reasoning here: the imperforates sorta' stops looking like a stamp to me. I need that little ridged edge or that dotted line across the page ... even if the little ridged edge is fake because the stamp is self-stick.

Also, I get the clean design and lack of distraction from the images themselves, but sometimes you get a sheet design that is the actual stamp smack dab in the middle of a picture that may be only tangentially related, and it looks really odd to me without the tidy perforated frame around it.

A lot to unpack here. As a former collector of Russia, I would collect regular issues and varieties of perforated issues that also found their way into the marketplace as imperf. To an extent however confined by finances. An example that comes to mind is the 1949 Lenin souvenir sheet, Scott 1327a imperf variety (no Scott variety number assigned for imperf) Most collectors have this imperf sheet in their collection as a sign of completion. It is attainable at $975 mint and was regularly issued along with the perf version. That being said there are other imperf versions of perf stamps that are very expensive and fall within the EFO category with few examples known. So, the upshot is what imperfs were created to be sold as such and which are truly errors. It has little to do with aesthetics. Avoiding one or the other types will likely mean you never have a complete collection of many areas. That is fine if that is your approach.

Tevvokia - if they were issued both ways and I wanted only 1 version, I would go with the perfed version.

Well, since I collect the USA 1847 and 1851 Issues, I am going to say I prefer imperforate. The 1851 Issue was (mostly) perforated in order to create the 1857 Issue, which I do not concentrate on.

If I didn't have this concentration, I would collect both for the sake of completeness. To each his/her own, though. Whatever floats your boat. Whatever gets your elevator to the top floor.

When I was younger I didn't like imperforate stamps. That position has changed as I have aged.

Eyeonwall raises an interesting point. The third issue for New South Wales is available both imperf and perf. The former were, for the most part, printed in many more shades than the perforated stamps.

If you are collecting vintage imperf. stamps, ensure you buy 4 margin examples. The only exception is if you are collecting postmarks. I'm still after a certain postmark that will only appear on an imperf. stamp and I'll happily have a lower grade stamp so that I have the postmark.

Like your avatar Bobby. Fits in nice.

I too have grown to appreciate imperforate stamps more as I've aged.

Might be partially a function of pushing the completeness urge into more areas. So over the last year I've been pursuing flat-plate imperforate coills (US that is). These are notoriously not in the main sequence of the Scott catalog, but lurk about the middle of the Specialized with the private perfs (which do not really interest me).

I also started to pursue fully and partially imperforate errors in US Airmails as a way to keep doing something with that collection which was, after all, pretty easy to complete since it is a very small universe, even when one collects all the booklet slogans and such. So they're a way to keep the hunt alive.

Since every thread deserves a picture or two, here is an imperf flat plate coil, Sc. 368V. somewhat long section with a pasteup lower down.
I think I'd better go dust my scanner now.

Nice! That must have been an exciting find.

I definitely can see gravitating toward imperforate stamps if you're collecting antique stamps, especially for completeness' sake.

Since I primarily collect topical stamps, that doesn't really come up often for me: the oldest stamp in my main collection is a 1951 issue.

Nice piece jleb1979

Thanks KGV Collector - the stamp is actually a perforated stamp that has been trimmed down.

I should've mentioned that sub-par imperf. stamps are also good for plating, if that's your thing.