Salvage Philately 2: Stamp or Cover? That Is The Question ...

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Unless the UK descends into complete chaos or the grim reaper decides that my time is up,  I will be at the LONDON 2020 international stamp exhibition in May 2020. I have booked two stands: on one, I will sit with my specialist stocks; on the other, I will try to sell off all the bin ends, bits and pieces, mistakes, and so on from my time as a dealer. There will be just two prices on this second stand: £5 and £2, and the aim is to offer good value for those prices.

As a dealer, I try to use my time well but like many dealers I fail. The simple pricing system - either it goes in a £5 box or into a £2 box - does save time, but only if I don’t think too much about what I am doing. In relation to stamps, it most definitely does not make sense to check perforations or watermarks or even postmarks unless they are very obviously significant. Nor does it make sense to clean up used stamps by soaking off old hinges and so on.

Collectors have a different set of problems. Take a look at the fragment of a cover illustrated above. It actually shows a lot of information of interest to a postal historian: (1) dated Sydney despatch cancel for 27 March 1868; (2) dated London arrival marks for 21 May 1868, as a result of which we know the total journey time taken by what was this letter; (3) a one shilling stamp which could have been the entire franking - I don’t know what the tariff was but a specialist will and will thus know if the franking is still complete.

BUT

The fragment - though it is without pencil notes or hinges - has been badly affected by water and quite possibly by water which was not very clean when it encountered the cover. The stamp has been affected.

A stamp collector might look at this fragment and decide to wash the stamp off . There will be no hinges on the back of the stamp, no thins, and when thoroughly washed the overall appearance might be really quite good and it will be easier to verify which stamp is actually on this piece. I measure the perforations at 13 and so the stamp is either SG 168 (rose-carmine, cat £8) or 169 (carmine, cat £8.50).

Well, at those values it is hardly worth the effort - you could buy a better looking loose stamp from a dealer for half cat. or less.

SO

My decision as a dealer is to leave the stamp on the piece and put the piece in my £5 box without comment. If it doesn’t sell there, then in due course it can go down to the £2 box. Of course, I  made the decision in two seconds - and before I started to study the fragment to write this Blog post.

Oh, and I forgot something: for the social philatelist there is a lot more information on this fragment: “…Woodward Esq    8 Parliament St     London” is enough to Google with even if you have to play around a bit to get results (there are results).