Question for experienced well read stamp collectors

What is the benefit if any to cutting out the entire postmark of a used stamp on an envelope? If it matters I’m in USA. Thanks for your reply.

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Hi Karl.

well, the only advantage of such action would be a bit of space saving.
In theory you would keep the whole envelope of cause. Other just soak the stamps off,
but that in many cases that “looses” most of the postmark. That why there is the third party cutting the stamps out with the whole postmark.

so the saying is

a stamps wispers,
a stamp with postmark speaks,
but a whole letter tells a story.

P.S. for US of cause a blurred killer postmark does not tell to much but you still have the recipient and the sender and potentially the text, if it is postcard ( But there are proper postmark in the US too big round and red in ink color )

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:+1:

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Well I’d guess they like a particular cancellation, like for a special occasion (I personally adore the hand-stamped commemorative ones from some countries Asia in particular), but don’t want to collect/save the whole envelope (which some other people, including me, do if they like a cancellation) perhaps because they don’t have a way to keep it, and it’s just easier to keep the cut off piece like that in their albums, or they might just prefer it to keeping the whole envelope.

When someone participating in the exhibition, it plays important role. For instance, if you are using “Mr. Hero” stamp on the envelope and the envelope is posted from his birth place, even if the cancellation is not good, or the cancellation is just a wave one, like most of the machine cancellations, then we can point sender’s address, to show that it is posted from his birth place. This fetches more point than using the used stamp or the cut out from the cover.

And the postal history collectors appreciate the whole cover, than the cut out one.

I always keep the whole cover, if the rest of the part or irrelevant, I use window method to hide them in exhibitions.

You can see them in my exhibit, in page 7, 17 and 18 I have used the whole cover, but in some places (Page 16) I have used window method to hide the cover and showed only the stamps.

Hope my explanation might cleared your doubt.

Cheers

Hi draconic, there are many reasons why someone ( a collector ) may wish to retain the Postmark, others have commented as such. Philatelists are often interested in the Postmarks for a variety of reasons, special cancellations ( at a Salon or to mark First Day of the stamp issue) retaining the Slogan postmark etc, a theme they are interested in or to prove a date of postage. I received a letter from Germany this morning with a covid slogan postmark for example. History also plays a part, there are many old postmarks from a time when every village and town had its own unique combination / type which is no longer the case. Postal historians often collect postmarks from the area they live in or have lived in.
Collecting Postmarks has been a hobby in it’s own right for a very long time, in the UK special albums were produced that enabled postmarks to be cut out ( often cutting through the stamp arghhh ! ). Attached are some pictures from a Postcard album I have which was produced around 1900 but contains Postal marks and cachets dating from before 1790, long before stamps. There are several thousand in the album arranged by each county in the UK ( some no longer exist ) and by area of the world, its a fascinating document and in many years collecting stamps it is the only one I have ever seen. Enjoy. Regards D

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None that I can think of. I am not really a fan of butchering an envelope / postcard for the stamps or cancel. There is one exception…perhaps.

There are many people who collect postmarks with Zip Codes. @Ceres1849 made note of this. The area of Postal History is interesting. For example, if one had a Zip Code postmark of a closed post office, that would be most interesting. The problem is that most of the mail the USPS processes these days is automated.

Thanks for sharing!