Philosateleian Blog

Antique stamp perforator sales and prices realized

About a month and a half ago I wrote how I’m looking for an antique stamp perforator with which I can perforate my local post stamps—preferably a tabletop model simply because those are small enough to ship. I’m still looking.

Stamp perforators—and I’m referring to machines that make perforations between stamps, not machines that punch initials—are not especially common, but I’ve seen a couple listed for sale online since beginning my search. To try to help other local post operators or artistamp creators who may also be looking for a perforator, I plan to update this blog post whenever I spot one that is either too far away or too expensive for me to buy. I’ll also add prices realized so we have an idea of how much a perforator should cost us!

The following table contains a list of perforators, when they sold, and either how much they sold for or (for those that are still on sale) links where you can get details.

Notes

1. This is the same Rosback tabletop perforator listed as having sold for $586 in March 2015.
2. This is the same Franklin tabletop perforator listed as having sold for $400 in December 2014, but with new pins.
3. This is the same Rosback tabletop perforator listed as having sold for $156 in August 2017.
4. This is the same Rosback tabletop perforator listed as having sold for $450 in May 2021.
5. This is the same Southworth tabletop perforator listed as having sold for $350 in February 2016.

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And one more thank you

Hot on the heels of James F.’s generous contribution to help with Philosateleia’s operating expenses comes another gift, this time from longtime supporter Vivian B. These gifts go toward keeping Philosateleia online, and will help greatly through the remainder of 2014 and even into 2015.

We’ll get back to regular programming soon, but I did want to applaud the folks who help. It means a lot to me, and I thank you.

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Recognizing a supporter

As you probably know, I operate Philosateleia as something of a labor of love. I would like to think that my website and free stamp album pages are my way of “giving back” to the stamp collecting world because stamp collecting is a hobby from which I’ve learned a great deal. I consider the relatively low expenses associated with running a website like this fair payment for what I’ve gained.

That’s not to say that I object to the support of collectors who find Philosateleia helpful, and with that in mind, I want to publicly thank James F. James recently sent a very generous donation that will pay this website’s hosting bills for most of the rest of 2014, and for that I say, thank you.

I’ve added James’ name to the list of Philosateleia’s supporters. If you have a moment, please leave a “thank you” of your own in the comments section for James, as well as Suzanne M. and David H., both of whom sent gifts earlier this year.

Finally, thank you for reading.

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Inverted Spider-Man, meet claustrophobic Spider-Man

I wrote earlier in the week about my inverted Spider-Man APC label. Spider-Man appears upside down in relation to the printed USPS logo, which shouldn’t have been printed on the label at all.

Now I have what I like to call claustrophobic Spider-Man. The overly wide bar code almost gives our superhero the appearance of being jammed in between a couple of walls!

Again, I don’t think this is what was supposed to happen. It seems more likely that a narrow bar code should have been printed, and that the sale date and other information shouldn’t be plastered all over the top of Spider-Man. It will be interesting to see what other “varieties” of this label appear.

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Spider-Man upside down on botched APC label

A little more than a year ago, I wrote about how postal employees not reprogramming Automated Postal Centers after loading in preprinted paper led to the creation of error labels. As you might expect, it’s happening again—and with some interesting results.

The USPS is promoting the Spider-Man 2 movie with a variety of marketing efforts, including using special preprinted paper in its APC machines. As was the case with the aforementioned holiday mailbox labels, the machines apparently are not always being properly reprogrammed when the new paper is loaded, as evidenced by this example postmarked in Bethpage, New York.

As you can see, not only is the preprinted Spider-Man present, but the print-on-demand USPS logo is, too! “Normal” Spider-Man labels don’t have that.

What makes this particular example even more interesting is that Spider-Man is upside down in relation to the USPS logo. (Not that Spider-Man couldn’t do that, but that’s beside the point.) The other examples I’ve seen of error labels for sale on eBay have the logo oriented in the same direction as Spider-Man.

To the best of my knowledge, it’s not possible for the print-on-demand logo to be printed upside down. The only conclusion I can reach, then, is that the preprinted paper was loaded into the machine backward, or upside down, however you want to describe it. This resulted in a sort of an invert.

Have you spotted any examples of the new Spider-Man label, either normal or errors? Let’s hear about them!

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