Pet Peeves On Early U S Stamps

lets see how long a list we can get going:

paper hinge remnants on nice high catalog issues

glazing from old crystal mounts that people swore by in the 50's and 60's !

pencil notations on the gum of MNH issues

A jumbo stamp with its margins trimmed to make it look "imperforate".

A single stamp that comes with a recent certificate from the block of 4 where the stamp was separated from (I collect multiples and would prefer the block).

A pen cancel removed and a fake CDS added to make the stamp "more desirable".

Jumbo imperf singles which should really be thought of as a damaged block of 9. Cutting up any multiple to create such a jumbo.

Early imperfs that were separated by scissors cutting into the design, re-gumming, pulled or short perfs

Rare cancellations on off-cover stamps.
Anything on a stamp that hints that the cover it came from would have been eminently collectible.

Scott numbers that should be varieties.

Pencil notations on the front of any cover (especially the selling price)

Collector's backstamps that bleed through to the face

dark violet vs. blackish violet - if you know, you know

Stamps encased in a mount sealed on all 4 sides with black paper backing. Extremely tedious to remove stamp without damaging it.

And I second Greaden's comment on Scott numbering. The entire U.S. Specialized needs extensive overhauling.

It's only been 84 years since the last serious overhaul.....

Agreed on the Scott listings.

Agreed on the "coffin mounts" sealed on all 4 sides, and I will add to that list encapsulated graded stamps. They keep falling off the hinges
Fortunately most of the encapsulated graded certificates that I see are for modern mint which is not the subject of this thread, but occasionally I see an early stamp that I want, but it is encapsulated and not worth the $15 fee to get it extricated from the mount.

The postmark's town and date written on the back of the stamp when they are easily discernible on the front.

Also agreed about early Scott catalogue listings. They are a mess. This was apparently done way back then when Scott was both a dealer and a catalogue publisher to create as many "different" stamps as possible to profit from more stamps to sell. So, yes, a "conflict of interest." Plus, in the early days of stamp collecting there just weren't enough stamps to collect, so collectors collected everything possible such as cut squares and various other "stamps" no longer part of a standard collection, so why not have even more to sell? The emphasis was clearly not on listing only clearly different stamps.

British stamps also suffer from the same silly compulsive need to list every conceivable type of the same stamp as if it deserved a different catalogue number. Ever spent time with the Stanley Gibbons Great Britain catalogue? Ho - ly Smokes! Welcome to eyestrain and a headache. So it's not just Scott that does this. The Scott Specialized U.S. catalogue really does need an overhaul.

Pet Peeve #2: Since when are stamps reprinted as souvenirs with no postal purpose and sometimes even without adhesive considered "stamps" which deserve different catalogue numbers?

Pet Peeve #3: In the Scott catalogue, dates of stamp issues only appear at the very beginning of a listing. This is fine for 20th century stamps, but for many lengthy 19th century issues that means pages of stamps without showing a date, forcing you to repeatedly flip back to search for the date. Why not list the date at the top of each catalogue page?

Pet Peeve #4: Obsessive-compulsive color differences no naked eye can differentiate. Yes, "dark violet" vs. "blackish violet". They are the same color! Also I hate anything called "carmine". Or "lake". What ARE these colors? I know! They're "red". Sometimes I feel like I'm shopping for women's clothes. Puce? Burnt sienna? Straw? Ochre? Now I really have a headache.

Alas, in U.S. stamps there is a real difference between red, carmine, and lake. No one is forced to collect every shade variety.

DrewM ----- Wait a minute .....back up. This whole color thing was a issue,well be you were born .

This started back 1870's and 1880's between the way French stamps were collected ,then it turn into the British way of collecting verse the French way of collecting . There was big disagreements around the way the dealers in Paris sold stamps . As the French way became the way the specialist all went over the British way . This only came to the United States later as stamp dealers started listing this on price sheets that the Scott catalog starting listing these color printing differences .

In my worldwide collection I have hundreds of shades that the catalogs don't list are they real differences I don't know because I don't have 220 different specialise catalogs from around the world to be checking on each one ,that will be a problem the next owner of my collecting could work out ......I got it mounted and let somelse deal with it .