I have been in two minds about whether to write this or not. I decided yes. One can see so many lovely stamps on various social media forums, most of them anyway are lovely, but a few that are lets say, perhaps ok just for ones personal collection even if a bit shabby. There that is quite tame isn't it.

It occurs to me that many new collectors will not necessarily know the good from the bad. For many years in another forum I advocated strongly for quality of stamp, correctness of description and integrity when offering a stamp for sale, or swap.

All this because the 6 stamps shown with this writing fail miserably in all respects. These do not come from a collector showing their stamps to us all but from a seller on a major portal.

Actually I am embarrassed that this seller has the audacity to even list them for sale. I am actually angry that the seller does list them and can get away with listing them. I only hope no one has the stupidity to buy one of them. Yes I know, buyer beware.

Oh and this was a two minute viewing I might add and the first few I saw. I didn't want to see more. These are NOT spacefillers, that is, stamps you can use until you find a better copy. Most sellers, yes like me, have hundreds of these in very nice, clean, not creased or stained condition.

I hope everyone enjoys their collecting (and continues to share great pictures of their stamps) and if in any doubt about quality can read the excellent materials published in most catalogues I have seen, especially Stanley Gibbons.

And, if in doubt or if you are new and learning. lets ask each other, is this an acceptable condition for the issue and age etc of the stamp?

Have a great philatelic weekend .... grumpy Michael :-) but happy Michael if you visit cddstamps.com or click here to go to our online store You want find anything like these there but you will be able to fill a few gaps in your collection with confidence you are getting something nice.