Yesterday, I was cutting up sheets. Sheets of stamps that had remained intact since 1920. Sheets that I have tried to sell as sheets, but without success.
Why? No one collects sheets; they don't fit onto album pages or exhibition pages. That's the real reason, not the expense of buying 100 stamps when one will do.(Some of the cut - up sheets I had been offering cheap - under 50 euros. It didn't help).
It's also a deterrent that it's expensive to have albums with sheet-sized pages made to order. But there are cheaper variants - German manufacturers produce "Bogenmappe" which are good for storage though not for display.
It's a pity no one collects sheets. With a sheet you can do plating, whether of a basic stamp or its overprint. For Civil War Russia, there is a lot of scope since many overprints are typographic and easily plateable. It's true, some of the sheets are very large. The printers' sheets of 1920 - 21 Azerbaijan pictorials are enormous. I did once manage to sell a big lot of those intact.
Cutting up sheets of bi-coloured Far Eastern Republic stamps (Chita issue) it looked to me that there was a single plate involved. Values were plugged in to the plate and could be changed. Some collectors will have noticed that there are small versions of the "20" on the 20 kopeck stamps and larger versions of the "20". These are simply plateable variants within the sheet. Actually, you only need a block of 4 to show both types.
My own opinion that it i not really perfect idea to cut sheet even is it not fit to album)...but of course it is personal decision)
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