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The Danger of Personalized Stamps

From the original Art on Stamps archive

The publicity of one of most active Swiss stamp dealer has drawn my attention on another, somehow less pleasant aspect of the personalized issues. Please look below for dealer's publicity (in black, translated from German) and for some comments.

Eight different images on one sheetlet. Normally only two different images are possible. This rare sheetlet appeared for the Bangkok 2000.This issue was ordered by the official representative of the Swiss postal administration.A very limited edition! (Sehr kleine Auflage!)

In my opinion there are several problems with this offer:

If a rank and file stamp collector can order only sheetlets with two different images, repeated four times on each sheetlet, thenhow can appearsheetlets that depart from this rule (see above)?

Is this anofficialor a private issue? Probably it should be considered as an official one, because, as stated by the dealer, it was ordered by an official representative of the postal administration.

Taking in consideration that the basic price of one sheet of under Fr. 15 and the postal value of Fr. 7.20, are the asked pricesso highbecause the edition was so limited? Or was it so limited in order to justify the high prices asked for this material? (At time the exchange rate is about US$ 1.00 = Fr. 1.70).

The philatelic code of ethics for the use of UPU members countriesspecifies in the article 4: For each issue of postage stamps, administrations shall ensure that these are printed in sufficient quantity to meet potential operational requirements and foreseeable philatelic needs. In employing cancellation dies, hand-stamps and cachets for special occasions or events, administrations shall ensure that a sufficient quantity of philatelic products is available to meet requirements.

The publicity comes from the same dealer who offered many imperforated postal stamps of Switzerland and Liechtenstein, stamps that can exist in certain quantities only when some officials circumvent the rules (clickhereto read the article about imperforates).

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