I have just recently joined the StampoRama group and have had a collection that I started when I was about 8 years old. This is mostly used stamps, but also some new, a lot of Ducks, then I gravitated to collecting multiples of used US stamps. I have many of these and many in large groups ( I wouldn't call them blocks) that I have save from packages, etc. over the years. These are the most common stamps of the times.

Question: Is there any way to find out what is the largest number of multiples ever sold is for a particular stamp?

About three years ago, I went to the National Stamp show in McClean, VA and talked to a man about this. He said they are not particularly valuable and not much interest in them unless they might be the largest block sold. So, how do I find this out?

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Les

22 Mar 2013
11:52:05am

re: Multiples of US stamps

Molly,
This is a shot in the dark. You might try contacting Regency Superior in St. Louis, MO. One of their catalog writers might have an idea where one might go to find out such information. I get Regency-Superior's Auction Catalogs and I rarely see used multiples for sale, most of the time used multiples are from the earliest issues. Henry Gitner or one of his staff might also know, he keeps very close tabs on the stamp market.

In my humble opinion, the common wisdom has always been to keep multiples intact, but unless you have a multiples of classic stamps the retail value is probably no more than the number of stamps in the multiple times the Scott Catalogue value. Most of the time the common multiples are broken up to find the stamp with the best centering.

Se-Tenant (stamps with different designs joined) are usually more valuable if the overall design remains intact. In 1967 Space Twins Scott 1331 & 1332 used have a catalogue value of $1.10 VF MNH and 1.25 used. The reason is that first class in 1967 was 5c and the stamps would not normally be used as an intact pair.

If the multiple demonstrates some unusual usage from a postal history standpoint, then it might have an extra value. Now if you happen to have used multiple with a US Scott 467 (the 5c carmine error in a sheet of 2c carmine) then you really have something. Most post offices returned the sheets when the found the error. A cover with 5c carmine used in place of a 2c would be a real find.

Reposted.

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cdj1122

re: Multiples of US stamps

This is also a reposting of something I put up some time ago, but the question returns as new collectors become curious so ::


The mania for blocks, especially with indica in the selvedge started over a hundred years ago. Postal Administrations originally simply printed and issued stamps as needed and only sometimes saved data for collectors. Often the plates wore out and were replaced, or were damaged and the engraving re-entered.
This created minor anomalies between what initially seemed like identical stamps from the same plate and same printing run.
However, occasionally collectors became suspicious that two or more plates had been used for a particular issue over time or a main plate had been repaired.
To investigate this possibility and prove the solution one way or another collectors sought multiple examples and tried to arrange the stamps as they had originally been laid out on the printed sheet.

The fun began when a collector acquired a pair of blocks of four where the stamp in ( for instance) the upper right quadrant of one had the identical minor variations as the stamp in the lower left quadrant of the other which then proved an overlap and identified the seven stamp's relationship to one another from the same printing plate.
If one of the blocks happened to have some identifying marking in, or on, the selvedge, that would help to determine what column and row the seven stamps were originally in. Perhaps then the collector discovered another strip of three stamps where one or two also over lapped and thus could be seen as to where it lay relevant to the other seven stamps as well, and in that way more and more of the stamp's plate's positions were identified.
Eventually, it would become obvious that either all the suspect singles were from one particular plate or that there were, in fact, two or more plates involved.

Probably the most authoritative and informative study of the early US stamps was compiled and written by Lester Brookman and titled, "The United States Postage Stamps of the 19th Century" (1947-Three volumes). In it, Mr Brookman explains how these details of different plates, even the existence of separate ones and how to decide if an example is from an original or a reprint. And that set is but one of several others devoted to plating those early printings.
So it was a challenge to acquire blocks, especially plate number blocks (PNB) and many advanced studies of the two or three plates used for one of these classic stamps won admiration and awards at stamp exhibitions. That kind of research kept some famous philatelists busy for years and years.

However, in recent years, most ( not all. ) postal administrations announce when a new printing is being released and the plates usually have numbers or identifying letters so much of that mystery is gone. But old habits die hard and collectors like to display the PNBs, especially a matched set of four, although there is not really any real philatelic necessity for doing so.
Also, since the mid '30s, the actual printing has been increasingly controlled by electro mechanical alignment contraptions

So if you like the way a block of four or six looks, enjoy yourself. There are times when I come across a block that bears a clear cancellation more of less centered and I may like keeping it that way. But when I buy a block at our local post office they are used on my mail and some are returned to me by my recipients to be added to my postally used collections.

Of course the foregoing mostly is aimed at blocks of identical stamps, not where there are mixed pairs, triptychs or quadritychs, which sometimes would lose meaning if separated.

At one time in the distant philatelic past I suppose that acquiring mint, never hinged stamps might have been more difficult as stamp issuing agencies only printed what they needed and expected to sell to the user. They were oblivious or nearly so to the possibility that anyone might want to gather these pieces of paper into a collection and often produced new issues or used new plates with little notice to the world at all.
In those days almost all postage stamps were purchased and used for the mail. So then unused stamps from that era had a premium as they were more difficult to find.
However at some point issuing agencies realized that there was money to be made in issuing stamps in excess of actual needs to be sold to the collector. In fact, certain quasi-nations printed and sold enough that stamp sales profits became a significant component of their annual budget. Flooding the hobby with issues that while technically possessing postal validity had no other postal need brought them a nice subsidy.
An interesting thing developed about eighty or ninety years ago in the stamp collecting community. The general public became aware that there was a profit to be made by buying and holding (not necessarily collecting) sheets, blocks, margin and plate blocks, and even single copies of used and unused postage stamps. Some famous collectors had paid great sums for such beauties for the reasons explained above and this was reported in the philatelic press as well as the general news publications of the day.
The philatelic hobby grew as collecting stamps became more and more popular. Speculators took notice that small pieces of paper that were originally bought for pennies were being sold for dollars or pounds. Many dollars or pounds.
However the typical speculator had a problem. He was not interested in the many details of the stamps that so intrigue collectors and often separate the rare from the mundane. He was accumulating for one reason, to make a profit. And the one thing that he did not want to be told when he went to sell his investment was that some scrape or smudge from having been passed through the mails system or a hinge remnant made his investment worth less than he thought inflation and growth over time ought to have generated. After all, he was in it for the investment potential. Perhaps at that point some dealers tended to exaggerate the importance of some minor defects so that they could offer a lower price. Either way great emphasis and subsequently a higher price was placed on the perfect mint copy.

So speculators demanded pristine, mint, "never in the same room as a hinge", copies. Postal administrations caught on and began to print more and more of each issue and longer sets. They started to commemorate everything and anything that they thought would be popular and the deluge gathered a momentum that still exists today.
Today almost every issuing agency produces what has become a flood of new issues. The modern collectors are often drawn into the game, purchasing stamps in different formats and of popular topics. World wide collecting has suffered. A complete set of Minkus or Scott's World Wide albums alone range in the vicinity of $4,500 without considering interleaving sheets or dust binders.
Most collectors seem to have decided that a single country or area or some interesting theme is the way to go. To assemble a modern mint collection of one or more countries, the primary requirement is ample funds. New issue services abound for most nations stamps as well as a myriad of topics. All it takes is money. Stamps are more and more attractive and ever more innovative. Formats have been created that did not exist fifty years ago and personally have no more reason for their existence than to stroke the golden goose, or geese. Smaller panes create more plate and position blocks and thus the necessity of spending more money for "completeness".
Then there came another complicating factor. Printed indica are cost efficient and ever more common and today e-mail has become faster and somewhat easier to convey messages. The majority of mail no longer bears an actual stamp. Those envelopes that do carry stamps often are not even cancelled. Those that do pass through the tender handling of the converted grain harvesters that apply cancels are likely to show the marks of that procedure. Postal services have chosen to only send limited amounts of their somewhat excessive sets and issues to local sales outlets.
So the collector who has chosen to collect decent postally used copies of the stamps of the USA or UK finds that pristine mint stamps are available from dealers and new issue services while nicely cancelled copies of stamps that actually went through the mail are becoming the proverbial "hen's teeth" of philately. Quite a few dealers avoid handling used stamps altogether unless a particular stamp has a significant premium. In fact many dealers have opted to take mint sheets to the post office and have them favor cancelled when they want to provide used stamps to the market. technically such stamps are not used, they are cancelled and handed back over the counter to the dealer.
Therefore, in today’s world, mint never hinged stamps are often more numerous and easier to obtain. People who bought large numbers of plate number blocks are discovering the sad truth when they try to sell their stamps. s.

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cdj1122

re: Multiples of US stamps

A block of used stamps of a set can be very satisfying.
In the 1940s the US issued the Famous Americans series, five low value (1¢ to 10¢, Scott #s 859-893 ) stamps for inventors, musicians, poets, educators, and so forth. My parents had saved anything philatelic from the early thirties, regardless of value or "curb appeal" even during the darkest days of WW II.
In later years I found that there were a large number of these common stamps still on paper in a cigar box, many in blocks of four or six. Sorting through them I found enough of the high value with an oval parcel post cancellation neatly centered in blocks of four to be able to mount the complete set separately in the USA album. The dollar value is likely nil, but I often pause and consider them and the way, postage stamps helped my mother cope with dreadful news from Europe and the far Pacific.
She had four of her seven brothers, my father and his brother, as well as three close cousins she had grown up with, as families did in the twenties and thirties, all in the armed services spread over the globe somewhere.
Mail was sporadic at best, and of course censored of any real indication of location beyond some vague reference to the heat or cold, a heavy downpour or something about a sunrise at sea. My immediate relatives all returned with only a few scratches, a busted ear drum, and what today might be diagnosed as a mild case of PTSD.
One of my earliest memories was of being taken to what I thought was a beautiful park with lots of bright green grass and watching the soldiers perform some ceremony that ended with them all shooting their rifles off at the birds and some guy playing a bugle as my mom held my hand very tightly. I was only about four or five. Apparently it was for a boy my mom knew from the neighborhood.
I remember the downpour comment particularly, and one uncle's complaint about sticky mud. One morning she read an article in the NY Daily News, possibly an Ernie Pyle piece about the Eighth Army having been bogged down in Italy in unceasing rain and mud, or it might have been a Bill Maudlin cartoon and she dug out some letter one brother had written where he mentioned the same thing. For days she read it again aloud to whoever visited the never ending tea pot she had in the kitchen and concluded (Accurately, it turned out) that one brother was in Italy with his Artillery Regiment.
It sometimes amazes me at how some simple stamp of set of stamps can help me recall, often with uncanny clarity, events that took place about seventy years ago.

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