A Canadian collector has picked up three booklets of Superman stamps lacking the simulated perforations.
Doug McAndless said he was able to get his hands on three booklets through his local retail postal outlet, a favourite haunt of his. He said he has a good relationship with the person who operates it, and she keeps an eye out for possible errors. Modern errors represent a popular area of collecting. Most errors are usually missing a colour, or have the perforations in the wrong place. Recently a similar error was reported with the $1.85 international-rate Christmas tree stamp, except that in this case the die cutter was out of alignment.
The Superman stamps were produced by Lowe-Martin, which uses a web, or roll-feed, press with a perforation unit at the end. The self-adhesive stamps are printed on the backing, and the perforation unit is set up to strike just hard enough to cut the paper with simulated perforations, but not into the backing. Rolls taken off the press are then processed into booklets. For these error booklets to have made it to McAndless, they would have had to pass unnoticed by at least three workers. It is that improbability that makes error stamps hard to find and attractive to collectors. In this case, McAndless sent a booklet to the Greene Foundation, and received a certificate describing it as genuine in all respects. Although the certificate was issued in November, McAndless did not contact Canadian Stamp News until late December. “When I purchased the booklets I called John (Jamieson) at Saskatoon Stamps to see if he might be interested,” McAndless said. Jamieson was not interested, but “a couple of days ago, he called back to inform me that someone had sold a booklet for $2,500.”