In regard to the actual stamps, there is much in the modern advanced collection which has not yet been fully appreciated even by the majority of collectors. Much less has it been grasped by the uninitiated vendor of "finds" among old letters and papers. It is but little known that a stamp in itself may be very common, but in a pair it may be of a high degree of value. This is putting it by extremes; but in the case of early imperforate stamps it is a fact that many of the first issues of Great Britain, her colonies, Holland, Belgium, German States, Uruguay, Chili, and other countries, the stamps are readily accessible as single copies, but pairs, much less blocks of four, are almost unheard-of rarities. Our own first stamp, the Penny Black, may cost 6d. to 1s. for a single used specimen, but a pair fetches 6s. to 7s. 6d., and a block of four would be worth 40s. to 50s. Alas! that many a one even among collectors has never yet realised that it is vandalism to take the scissors to a fine block of imperforates, simply because he is a collector of the one-stamp-of-a-kind order and has no use for a block.
Mr. Hugo Griebert of London, in a painstaking study of the "Diligencias" of Uruguay, says: "If blocks and pairs had been available it would have saved me years of work"; and again, "It is very unfortunate that blocks of the 'Diligencia' stamps are practically unknown. Not a single pair even of the 60 centavos or 1 real has come to my knowledge." Of the 80 centavos, there are a priceless block of fifteen and a block of four in a collection in the United States; there may be others to be found, and they would well repay the finding!
A block of eight of the Penny Black stamp (used) has fetched £15, and a block of sixteen would bring its owner at least £25—some thousands per cent. over the catalogue quotation for single copies.
AN ENVELOPE BEARING THE RARE STAMP ISSUED IN 1846 BY THE POSTMASTER OF MILLBURY, MASSACHUSETTS.
ONE OF THE STAMPS ISSUED BY THE POSTMASTER OF BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA, DURING THE CIVIL WAR, 1861.
Here, too, I may remark that with old used stamps, especially the imperforates, really fine copies cannot always be got at the prices indicated for them in the standard catalogues. The same applies to some extent to the unused copies also; but the beginner would be well advised to choose even his (apparently) common stamps with painstaking regard to their perfection of condition, and not to break up pairs or blocks of early imperforates, even though they may be inconvenient for insertion in his album. Fine copies are often sold by the smaller dealers and in the provinces and from private sources at prices based on the catalogue rates, and it is in these directions that even to-day, with many thousands of keen hunters, bargains are still to be had by the collector possessing an appreciative eye for the rarity of condition.
