How to deal with faulty stamps! Point of view

Hand in old faulty stamps to your club or society, put them up on stiff sheets with a plastic cover and lend them to members who want to learn about early editions.

Surprisingly often I see faulty old Danish stamps, especially from the “skilling" denomination period of 1851 – 1875, offered for sale at horrendous prices. I wonder what happens to these stamps in the end, since they are rarely sold for the price that the seller asks? I have however noticed that some of these faulty stamps reemerge in collections put up for sale. Suppose the seller is thinking, if I bury them among other stamps, which are in a better shape, buyers will not notice or not mind? May even increase the total price of the lot?

What do I mean when I say faulty? I mean missing perforation, cut into or cut off all perforation, smaller or bigger creases, corners missing, thins aso. They really look and are clearly faulty bad quality stamps. What do I mean when I say horrendous prices? I mean the full or close to full catalog price. Their real value if any is a small fraction only of the catalog price.

My advice to sellers of old faulty Danish stamps is the following. Describe them for what they are, faulty. Put them up for sale at auction at the lowest possible selling price. Put them up in lots of 10 or 20 and I am sure the sellers will see that these stamps have after all a value as study material. Many a collector’s question about type, colour, variety, print aso could be answered by the collector him- or herself, if only they were owners of a sample.

Another idea would be for the stamp collectors clubs or societies to encourage their members to hand in these faulty stamps, put them up on stiff sheets with a plastic cover and lend them to members who want to learn about early editions.

No need to say, that the above pieces of advice is valid for all countries as far as old or classic stamps are concerned. It is only because I am Danish and a collector of Danish stamps that I make my comments on the background of my knowledge of classic Danish stamps.