Canada Picture Stamps

[yewkou]

Who knows why the Canada Picture Stamps so expensive ?

Some used stamps have been bid over $50 !

Just snoopy.

[ricarmic]

There is a very small but dedicated group of collectors of the personalized postage stamps that will sometimes fight over them. The good ones are the older/early ones. Too many other folks have noticed this same thing and are producing their on en-masse on the latest/newest issues in the hopes to make a killing. They won't.

[ricarmic]

Nice time to spell check after I posted.... "their on en-masse" should have been "their own en-masse"....

[reallynicestamps]

Do you mean the personal ones that you can have made for wedding invitations and the like? I can't imagine that they would have much interest to philatelists unless the image was something special.

For those who are unaware of these. You send a picture to Canada Post and they make up little labels which are then stuck on a stamp made like a picture frame. There is a surcharge over the price of the stamp for the extra service, but it is amusing.

Or do you mean Commemorative stamps? There are often varieties of these which may command largish sums. For example. Scott #158 the 1929 Bluenose commemorative has a face value of 50 cents, sells normally from $15 to $300 depending on grade (used /good rising to Mint/never hinged/ Very Fine) but the Man in the Mast variety sells easily in the $1200 range.

There are a few more modern commemoratives with varieties -- the Space Hologram has a few that are sought after, for example.

[yewkou]

I meant something like this:

ONE USED PICTURE POSTAGE STAMP CHEESEBURGER-$1 SHIPPING

131108531891

Hope the seller wouldn't mind I post his item.

[ricarmic]

Yes it is as I said above. This is an older stamp. If you check his sold prices older ones like this they have sold from 99c to high priced ones like this. I believe I know the reasons why some are high and some are low, but it cost me time and money to learn those lessons so that part remains a secret...as I said other folks have seen this and are creating modern ones to try to get rich quick and that won't work....

[femmefan1946]

Are these showing in the Unitrade catalogue? It might be another project for Robin Harris, when he finishes re-writing the whole thing single- handed.

Or perhaps there is a collector planning an exhibit. BNAPS is turning some exhibits into books although so far most of these have been about more "classic" topics.

[ricarmic]

There has been much discussion in the last year regarding this. As I last understand it (there is a very big letter to the editor in the last Canadian Stamp News from a Scott publishing editor about this) the Canada Post limited edition versions sold at the PO will not be listed in Scotts. They only list the fact that a pane plus stickers are available. Unitrade does list the PO produced limited edition ones they are "PP99" stamps.

The coles notes version is that even to try to list the PO limited edition ones there would never be a way to identify them all, nor to stop people from creating more or very close versions on their own ie there is a rare one comes out, I take a very close similar picture, send it in and voila I just got 25 rarities. As well Canada seems to be one of the "restrictive" countries, apparently some European countries have 1000s of different limited edition types available....

So of course given even the "official limited editions" created by the POs aren't even listed, the actual personalized ones won't be catalogued for some time. I expect 10 or 20 or whatever years from now one of the heavy duty collectors will put out something that identifies the types and relative values (ie a picture of a Dog goes for more than Grandma and Grandpa) but I suspect that is a ways off. I also expect that it will stop after the first few issues as I see a lot of entrepreneurs posing their kids, dogs you name it to try to make $$$ with the current issues.   

I just wish I had a few 100 of the old ones.... they are very hard to find....

[yewkou]

Sometimes the cancel on stamp is not clear, you cannot tell what year.

How can you tell it's old or new ?

[ricarmic]

If you aren't conversant with the stamp designs through experience, having a catalogue that pictures them will let you see/know the "old" vs modern frames.....you can pick up a used catalogue cheaply or new ones online. The Unitrade catalogue has much better and detailed descriptions etc...

[rehautala]

I sell stamps, so I understand that some of the  early personalized postage would be more scarce. However, I just can't get over the idea that people will pay a premium when the photo is of someone else's wedding, parents, aunt, uncle, etc.

I can see maybe the generic ones as being more interesting (pets, cars, etc).