Philatelic Misnomers

The world of philately is replete with euphemisms and misnomers. Some of them are deceptive. Most of them are silly. The American Philatelic Experization Service (the expert group of the APS) for many years marketed themselves under their acronym APES, never cognizant that in the competitive world of expertizing services one shouldn’t voluntarily place oneself lower on the evolutionary tree. And perhaps the height of  tastelessness is the euphemism “Closed Albums” for philatelic obituaries. I mean really! But this phraseology, though tacky, is harmless compared to the assault on language made by philatelists in minimizing faults and exaggerating quality. “Expertly Restored” is favored when the seller is attempting to foist off a repair as a genuine item.  A repaired stamp is considered damaged and must be sold as such, usually at a great discount from the perfect price. But oddly, “restored” covers are acceptable in the postal history world with many of the best covers having had extensive repair work done on them. Its worth noting that until the post WW II period stamp  collectors were much like cover collectors today and didn’t care much whether a stamp was repaired or not providing the work was done carefully and expertly. Then fashion changed, and not only was stamp restoration looked on as a fault but as perhaps the worse fault of all. Prices for repaired stamps have fallen to just a few percent of the perfect price. I can almost hear the screams at exhibition halls if this collector preference about “expert restoration” were to start to extend to covers as well.