Dialysis, damned if you do...dead if you don't 30 Dec 2018 05:56:07am
re: A Little Help With Identification.
Hi Randy,
Do the stamps have original, undisturbed gum? (In other words, no offset from a document on the gum?)
For a US revenue stamps to be considered ‘mint’ it has to have original gum and never been applied to a document. The cancelling of revenue stamps did not always happen, many revenue documents can be found with the stamps uncancelled. If they were applied to a document then they are considered used (cancelled or not).
Please note that it is not uncommon for revenue stamps to ‘pop’ off a document; the stamps will often still have their gum and might also have offset printing from the document. If so, then they are considered ‘used’.
Don
Here is a quote from the revenue stamps section
of the 2017 U.S. Specialized Catalog;
"Many, but not all, of the pre-1898 revenue stamps exist unused
with original gum. These are not valued in the listings,
but they sell for more than used examples in the marketplace."
This being said, true mint multiples of 6 or more can be quite scarce
for first-issue revenues, and it can be difficult to find pricing for
such without consulting a dealer that specializes in revenues.
Also, are you sure yours are the silk paper variety?