Gold Horizon – the label itself

Condition, as we know, is everything – what to look for then?

Well…

The first thing to consider is the condition of the label itself. Damage to a label should be viewed in the same light as damage to any other stamp  – so there should be no:

Cuts:    

those kiloware fiends happy with the scissors!

Tears:  

not as easy to tear as stamps but it does happen

Creases:

quite common unfortunately – especially with items (1L & 2L) that go through normal sorting/cancelling machines; corners especially get turned up, like the hoover on the edge of the rug!

Lifted perfs:  

only applicable to Type 1’s but especially in kiloware that’s seen better days – the die-cut perfs get rather ragged!

Wrinkles:

counter-staff are quite proficient with their Horizon machines these days & kinda slap them on willy-nilly & often results in the label not being flat giving a wrinkle or crease – ho hum!

Rubbing:

does happen sometimes – often to do with sorting/cancelling.

Overall I would say that any of these faults will significantly devalue an item. There are however one or two exceptions:

cut-down – operational use

• This label has been cut down solely not to obscure the address – purely operational. Some counter-staff do however wrap the label round the back! But then that obscures the service indicator so although cutting down maybe time consuming (with a queue out-the-door!) it makes sense.

cause for change!

• These two show damage as a result of removing labels from their backing at the counter. Examples here (Types 1 & 2) both have security slits top & bottom (12 & 6 o’clock). Counter staff were finding that labels caught & ripped on removal from the backing – of course they couldn’t just do a new one as the service had already been paid & accounted for. This was the reason the Type 2a we have now is in use (without the top & bottom slits). Damage therefore is operational.

So from a collectors point of view I think having an example of security slit damage is valid but no more than that! For the cut-downs they’re actually not very common at all – so having more than a handful of examples will be quite difficult! However I think examples proving operational source will be the only ones worth having. Maybe the point is that they could never be regarded as varieties and anyway, I think we’d be on a ‘hiding to nothing’ collecting examples in each service indicator!