Demystifying CTO (Cancelled To Order) stamps
One of the requested topics for the blog entries has been CTO (Cancelled-to-order) stamps. As the recent post about East German definitive stamps showed several CTO-examples, I think this is an excellent time to demystify CTO.
Eastern Europe countries produced a great number of CTO stamps.
So what does CTO mean?
The short definition of CTO is very simple: a stamp that the issuing postal service has canceled/postmarked in large number before selling them directly to stamp collectors or dealers (with or without discount compared to stamps postal rate).
The history of CTO-cancels begins in the late 1800’s, experienced the hottest peak (so far) in the 1950’s and 60’s, and started to decline in the 1990’s. Very likely most stamp issuing countries have produced CTO-cancelled stamps in some scale, and will do so in one way or another in future as well.
A very common reason for making CTO-cancelled issues was (and is) collector demand – like with the DDR stamps. Building a collection of all the different stamps with relatively light and unobtrusive cancellations is a very hard job – even on single country level. By producing “collector quality” copies en masse, the postal services have managed to achieve several goals with one move. The collectors became happy as they received the stamps with light and unobtrusive cancel without any damages caused by real postage. The postal office services were happy as they didn’t have to do manual cancelling and hear collector complaints of poor job. And above all, the postal ministry managed to create new income channel…If the above sounds familiar, then take a look of the “new issue” services of any country. These are the spawns of CTO.
Several western europe countries, like Switzerland and Liechtenstein, have produced CTO for their new issues service subscribers.
Another common reason for creating CTO-cancelled copies is to exclude stamps issued only for the collector market being used on real postage. A good example of this can be found once again from the East German 5 year plan definitive stamps article. The 20/24pfg stamps 1957 re-issue was never indented outside western collector markets. Thus it exists only in CTO-used condition.
Are CTO-cancelled stamps collectible?
IMHO, yes. CTO is a condition (or state) of used stamp in similar fashion as we collectors categorize unused stamps to mint never hinged and mint hinged (and lots of other subclasses).
But that said, most collectors avoid CTO-cancelled stamps more than plague (or stamps with mildew). And due to this, they have a notably lower catalog value (and demand) than postally used copies.
Personally I accept CTO-used stamps into my collection. However, if I can choose between a real used and CTO-used, then I always prefer real used.
How do I identify a CTO stamp?
CTO’s have many faces, but with couple of simple guidelines anyone can identify them easily.
The most common characteristics of CTO-cancelled stamp are very easy: a neat, usually quarter (single corner) cancels with repeating town/date part. As the cancels are usually printed (on press) directly to stamps, they are very clear and appear on same location. And the gum on the back is still present… Using this rule anyone can recognize at least 50% of worldwide CTO’s.
Many topical stamps from far-away places are usually CTO-cancelled.
However, not all CTO-cancels are applied on print. Especially older CTO’s are created by hand-cancelling stamp sheets. The results are real-looking cancellations with specific places and dates; and usually with full gum.
But as anyone can wash out (soak) the gum off – not to mention CTO’s issued without gum – the only permanent characteristics of CTO is the cancel. Therefore learning to identify various CTO-cancellations is very important. Specialized stamp catalogs and other philatelic literature play a major role with this.
Wurttemberg hand-cancelled CTO's.
It’s important to note, that CTO and favour-cancelled stamps are in some cases very easy to mix. The difference between these two is that favour-cancelled stamps are usually cancelled on small scale (by single or few collectors/dealers) on local post offices, while CTO-cancelled stamps come with prints in six or seven figures. A good example of these are Finnish stamps cancelled around the 1963 currency reformation – a lot of collectors and dealers did favour-cancel huge numbers of complete sheets to get future “trading material”.
What countries should I beware?
Before giving this list, I must warn that this is heavy generalization – most of these areas do provide loads of real used stamps, but they are just a bit (or sometimes a LOT) harder to come by.
Communist states like Cuba, Kampuchea, Mongolia, North Korea, Soviet Union and Soviet satellite states, Vietnam etc. have produced loads of CTO. However, as many of these are nations with huge population, also real used stamps exist.
Some Caribbean, South- and Middle American countries, like Nicaragua, Paraquay, Guyana and many smaller Caribbean islands, have produced large scales of CTO at some point of their of postal history. The same can be said of many (French) African states like Chad, Niger or Mauritania.
One of the best known examples of CTO producers are Dune-states (Ajman, Fujeira etc) in the 1960/70’s. Many of these are very hard or impossible to come with real postal usage.
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Hi Keijo,
I very much enjoyed your article on CTO stamps and was pleased to see you took pains to distinguish between stamps issued and cancelled by printer and those cancelled by individuals (favor cancels). I don’t collect the former, but find the latter especially desirable. I always attempt to get a nice CD cancel on mail I send to collectors. Some collectors use the term CTO to for both types of cancellations which causes me confusion! I’m sure that there are probably many stamps in my collection that started their existence as CTO’s that were subsequently “washed” to remove the gum; those with cancels which were part of the original printing process are pretty easy to spot…but others not so easy. I admit I kid myself into believing some of these were postally used and I was just fortunate to find an example with a particularly nice cancel!
I admit that I build up same kind of “daydreams” occasionally. LOL
That said, terminology is a difficult subject in worldwide stamp collecting and philately. It seems that most continents (and in some cases even countries and even eras) have managed build up slightly separate weightings that add spice to original meanings. For example favour-cancelling has in many countries developed from corner cancels (pre-1950’s) to “half-moon” (1950’s up to 1970′), and finally to “full moon” (from 1980’s onwards) cancels.
Hello again Keijo
Would it also be safe to ‘assume’ that stamps cancelled (Printed) CTO are usually from the capital of any individual country
Enjoyed the article a lot
Larry Matthews (Ontario, Canada)
Hi Larry,
I’d say that it’s not a safe assumption… For some areas/countries (and era’s) it’s somewhat accurate, but for some not.
Hi;…I’ve got a couple of queries about stamps Keijo:
a) How do you consider a CTO; is a used stamp?…or is
mint with a light cancellation made by the issuers with the purpose of being in the collector’s album?…or is useless in philatelic terms?
b) What can you do with a used stamp which is totally clear of postmarks on the cover?…re-use again?…keep as a miracle?…or bang it in the bin?
Salut!
Fred.
Hola Fred,
a) CTO-stamps… It’s not mint, but it’s not real used either. CTO-cancellations are class of their own (and no, they should definitely not be mixed up with favor cancelled stamps; which are a subset of used)… For more, read this entry about CTO-stamps and their history…
But yes, I think that CTO-used stamps could be collected as variations too, as in some cases CTO-stamps are of different print than stamps placed on real sale; I think that at least GRD/DDR and North Korea have practiced this behavior for some stamps… And then on truly specialized level, one could go on and focus on different CTO-cancel variations. At least Michel’s specialized catalog for Germany lists about every possible German CTO-cancel one might bump into…
b) uncancelled stamps… Personally I’m not into them at all; sometimes I pass them on as freebies or give them to kids for play…And I definitely would not even consider re-using them. I’ve tried to soak one too many stamps, that some “scrooge-minded” has attached with superglue or similar, LOL.
@Keijo, I’m still waiting your answer to my query: What the hell is a USED CTO???!!!
Sallute vois!
Sorry Fred, totally forgot this question … This is simple (but tricky)… . Used CTO’s are CTO-used stamps that people (likely collectors) have used to pay postage
Is it illegal? Yes! Does it work? In most cases yes (thanks to postal service automation You can pretty much place anything on top of cover).
Amazed? I’m not. Consider how much effort some people put to re-use non-cancelled stamps – soak and glue time and again. With CTO’s it’s much simpler – just lick and stick. LOL:
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
Voila Keijo! Thanks for that…so those CTO mint that I got, if I soak and leave to dry…will become “used CTO” right?…it’s really funny so…L O L!!!
so those CTO mint that I got, if I soak and leave to dry…will become “used CTO” right?
No. Gum has nothing to do with the fact that a stamp is CTO. There are even countries that produce their CTO’s without gum
It all boils down to knowing what cancellation / postmark was used in real postal process / circulation, and what was used to cancel CTO’s…
The following Mongolian bird stamps are both no gum. The first is real used, latter is CTO.
A “used CTO” is something that has cancelled-to-order postmark and a real postmark/cancel – like this:
(I agree this is not the finest specimen, but best I can come up… it has traces of those “orange bars” you see on international letters; a definite mark of real used IMHO. The fancy cancel is 100% Australian P.O CTO IMHO)..These should definitely be collected as entire covers, not as singles IMHO (mine is from kiloware).
The postmarks on all above could easily fool a person thats does not know too much about CTOs. But these all are pretty obvious for more trained eye. And of course having proper catalogs / literature helps in identifying CTO’s (glue or no glue).
If you want, I can try to mail You a postcard with (some foreign) CTO stamp on top. If all goes well, it gets delivered normally. If not, then you very likely have to meet your postman/girl asking you to pay a due before giving the postcard. But in all cases I’d expect the CTO-stamp to get cancelled…Yes, I’m bending (postal) legislation here a bit, but what would I not do for a bit of “research” & “fun”. LOL.
Oh no!…christ! you made my day Keijo…what a…crap!,
why is so complicated?…anyway, I’m not going to check one by one the postmarks and everything…at the end of the day, I just got my stamps and I play like I want to, no the way the catalogue say is good or bad…I’ll do it as I like and that’s it, the most important thing is to enjoy yourself with whatever you do, isn’t Keijo?…
I’ve been around Stampex this morning to have a look and get some freebies (they give you some magazines and things like that)but not to buy stamps!…what I’ve got cheap (£0.90)
was a SG Great Britain Concise Stamp Catalogue 2009,the retail price is £ 29,00…LOL!
I ordered as well, a oficial UPS Guide to US Stamps edition 37th (2010)as a reference for my US collection…should be here by the end of this month, again… LOL!!!
saludos cordiales!
very good
Hi everyone;
I quit collecting first-day-covers, simply because they are CTO. They were canceled, but did not pay their way to be delivered. They arrived inside of an envelope that was sent in as a SASE to return them in by the postal fulfillment people.
Contemporary stamps will never be worth very much anyway, so I donated them to the stamp club for their auction.
Anyway I prefer stamps I can mount on album pages. Not too much into covers at all. I usually trade or sell them off.
Happy collecting
Ken
Fred, after reading you post above, I decided to subscribe to Stampex (which I had not heard of). Did you order the UPS Guide by going to Free Story Directory and then to Stamps/Publications and Supplies? Thanks!
okay so i read your comment above Keijo about CTO’s being in a class of there own. But in terms of value, would you say they are in between mint and used?? Or are they valued as used stamps?
@Tucker… They are still a class of their own… sometimes CTO is much rarer than mint or used (like early Australia), sometimes it’s the opposite (like Soviet Union), and sometimes it’s inbetween (like DDR).
In my opinion CTO´s; they are published with only purpose to get money. I can´t understand that state with “few” citizens produce hundreds of different stamps every year. Stamp has a purpose to carry your posting to it´s destination. Souveniers should separate from stamps. Can you estimate how many CTO´s are worldwide? I think that in classic era there is CTO´s at all with the exeption of precancels
A lot. MUCH MORE than most collectors dream / fear.