Look at all those Franklins staring at ya! I got this sheet in the mail this week. This is Philippines 226, the overprint variety of USA 300.
Bid on it on the 'bay as "Complete sheet minus one stamp" and I got excited because in all my years of collecting my Franklins, I had never seen a full sheet. I saw it at the last minute on my phone, so I dialed in my snipe bid and waited. I was very happy to be the only bidder at $199. Happy dance!
It came in the mail demanding a signature, so my wife picked it up at the post office. I got a funny feeling when I saw the flat package sitting on the kitchen counter... it didn't look big enough to be a sheet. I opened it and counted the stamps for the first time. Aha! It's only 89 stamps. The entire right hand strip of 10 is missing. Now the seller never saw that and I didn't count the stamps on the little phone image (a lesson there!). So I emailed the seller and he was upset that he sent it and pledged to make good. He offered to refund me $50, which I accepted. I still wanted the 'sheet' since it still represents the biggest block of my Franklin stamp that I've ever seen. And certainly worth $150 in my book!
So in the end, the seller is happy and I'm happy. And I'll be a bit more careful in the future.
Ben,
That's awesome! I love pieces with big selvege and bureau imprint. I've got a couple of low value columbians strips and blocks with all the margin stuff. Great piece of Americana
I'm quibbling (and just a bit jealous!), but your stamps aren't varieties. They are completely different issues. Arpin.com's philatelic glossary defines variety as "A variation from the standard form of a stamp. Varieties include different watermarks, inverts, imperforates, missing colors, wrong colors and major colour shifts…." You correctly point out, of course, that the P.I. stamp has a different Scott number than the original U.S. stamps.
"I'm quibbling (and just a bit jealous!), but your stamps aren't varieties. They are completely different issues. Arpin.com's philatelic glossary defines variety as "A variation from the standard form of a stamp. Varieties include different watermarks, inverts, imperforates, missing colors, wrong colors and major colour shifts…."
"
C'mon Bob, don't harsh BF02's mellow, man!
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