There are plenty of interesting Vietnamese stamps, but one of my personal favorites is this striking doubled frame print error on CTO-used stamp commemorating the birth of Raphael.
It’s been a long time since I showed some of the EFO’s, but I think they will match perfectly with my current writings about stamp quality. Here’s something I picked up last night from kiloware I had soaked few days earlier.
Most stamp catalogs do a somewhat decent job in displaying the various quality levels of cancelled stamps. However, IMO there are surprisingly large international variations to what is desirable / non-desirable.
Not all stamps are born equal. There can be lots of minor quality flux that fits into printers guidelines of acceptable variation and printing conditions. In addition there are all sorts of errors, freaks and oddities (like printers waste) that ends up one way or to another to stamp collectors albums.
Keeping on eye for the quality is something I think many collectors do. Personally I admit that I’m in constant process of enhancing the quality of items in my collection. For the next couple of posts I’ll be writing up some notes about quality in general as well as diving more in-depth into world of measuring quality (grading). Though stamps and collectors have been around for 160 years, this topic continues to be still under heavy debate (to my amazement).
I’m a non-smoker, so one of my greatest annoyances is ending up with otherwise good stuff that has cigarette smell all over. So how do I get rid off the smell?
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