I have always wondered about this. Brewster purchases the famous upside down airplane stamp for $1.25 million and then subsequently mails it to the law partners. According to the rules laid out, you cannot destroy anything that is inherently valuable. By cancelling the stamp, doesn't this violate the rules?
shareI personally wouldn't think so - after all, he didn't ruint he stamp himself, the post office did. I would think otherwise, on that same theory, the car accident wouldn't have counted either?
shareThat's the beauty of it -- though the stamp is worth millions to collectors, as legal tender issued by the US govt., the stamp still could be used at its original worth.
shareplus, he didnt destroy it.
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i was more confused by the fact that the post office DID mail the envelope with the old stamp. Even though it's worth millions to collectors, wouldn't it actually be insufficient for modern-day postage?
assuming it was an old stamp, and the price of stamps increases.
OK, first off, the stamp would still be very valuable, postmarked or not, because there are 4 in existance. Second, it could be seen as the purchase of services (granted, highly eccentric), and third, ITS A *beep* MOVIE. Just watch it and laugh. You're ruining it.
sharethat doesn't answer my question though.
Brewster's using the stamp would be the same as me going to a grocery store and trying to buy a carton of milk with an Ancient Roman coin.
I don't think the U.S. Postal Service would deliver mail with an antique stamp on it.
I don't know about the US, but in the UK I believe a stamp remains legal tender forever.
If it's the same there it would seem perfectly feasable that the stamp would still be acceptable.
A stamp is only ever worth the price it has printed on it. The only reason people will pay more for stamps like that is because of their rarity. It doesn't make them worth any more, it just makes collectors want them more and therefore willing to spend more to get them.
The only reason this particular stamp is considered valuable is because someone messed up when it was printed and did it upside down. It doesn't change the fact that it's worth I think about 24 cents, just that it's more 'desirable' as a rare item. :)
The thing about the UK is, I believe correct - although stamps from before the decimalisation of currency are no longer useable. Although postage prices change, it's possible to use stamps up to any value, and ones that say '1st' or '2nd' on can be used even if the postage cost has increased since purchased because they have the mail class on them rather than the cost. :)
You couldn't buy the milk with a Roman coin, but you could buy it with a $20 gold coin. It's still legal tender. You could pay for the milk with 700 half cents or 175 2 cent pieces, even $3.50 in 3 cent pieces. It's still legal tender.
shareBut my contention is yes, he didn't technically destroy the stamp. But Brewster did destroy the worth of the stamp. Doesn't that destroy what is inherently valuable? I mean granted, it's not like Brewster used a Picasso for firewood, as Uncle Rupert so eloquently put it. But I really think buying an asset and vastly reducing its worth violated the rules, although the partners in the law firm didn't seem too worried about it.
shareNobody has pointed out that the stamp dealer is wrong when he tells Montgomery that there's only one copy of the stamp in existence. In fact there are at least 90 surviving copies of the "Inverted Jenny", as the stamp is known.
shareActually, from what I've been told about collecting stamps, it's a goof in the movie. The stamps that you collect are already cancelled, so you can't use them. I never tried to verify it, since I didn't really care, but that's what I've been told.
shareStamp collections will almost always be mostly unused/mint stamps. It is rare for a used stamp to be more valuable than one that is unused. Of course if there was a used copy of the Inverted Jenny (the popular nickname for this stamp) it might make it more valuable. But of course this is fiction, and we know that the 4 copies of this stamp will only be seen under glass.
Also, while we are nitpicking, the Inverted Jenny was an airmail stamp, so we are to assume Monty mailed it from somewhere that would be valid for airmail.
I was always under the impression that a franked stamp would be of a less vakue to a collector than an unfranked stamp. Therefore wouldn't this drastically reduce the market value of the stamp ? this breaks the rules surely. Ok its not destroyed but purposefully devalued. As they say you cant buy a load of paintings by Rembrandt (or which ever famous painter they quoted) and use them for firewood, but then if the stamp trick was allowed he could by a load of rare paintings and deface them or rip them, then sell them back on at a huge loss. The art isn't destroyed but a lot less valuable.
shareWell well well,
Looks like a Florida voter used this same stamp to mail in a ballot. As soon as I saw the news piece I remembered this movie.
Here is the link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061110/us_nm/life_stamp_dc
LOL indigo, I just read about that an instantly came to this forum to see if anyone else noticed it! Great minds think alike. I didn't even realize it was still in existence. It totally makes me wonder about whether the person who sent it knew what it was worth. Maybe someone was going after it in a divorce settlement, and that was their way of getting rid of it? (Hey, it's a theory!)
share[deleted]
I agree with the above posters that he didn't destroy the stamp, he paid for it like it was anything else and used it for what it was intended for in original production/manufacture, not what it was intended for when it was sold by the philatelist.
Also, it's been a bit since I've seen the film, I'm pretty sure the value of the stamp was 24c which is how much a regular first class stamp was at that time. I remember it being 24 cents because I thought that was goofy as that meant that it was a current stamp and valuable stamps are almost always older, often much.
In short, it was a contemporary stamp and valid postage.
Whether the stamp is destroyed or not, it's no longer Brewster's property once he mailed it. And if canceling the stamp destroys the value of it, that was done once it ceased to be his property anyway.
shareShort answer no, it is a stamp and thus it is made to be mailed and as such he has used it for it's logical and exact purpose and thus he has not destroyed it, rather he has used it.
Secondly to be inherently valuable something must have a value inherent from itself, either it's make up, composition or ingredients, this stamp was made in a stamp factory from paper and stamp glue and has a grand total of the sum of it's parts or the £0.01 dollar it claims to be worth to US Mail and as such it is not inherently valuable.
I reckon u could argue it in court and u'd have a fair chance of winning but you'd have to show that merely because it was sought after made it inherently valuable and that by using it for it's logical purpose it was destruction. But it'd be an interesting case...
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Secondly to be inherently valuable something must have a value inherent from itself, either it's make up, composition or ingredients, this stamp was made in a stamp factory from paper and stamp glue and has a grand total of the sum of it's parts or the £0.01 dollar it claims to be worth to US Mail and as such it is not inherently valuable.
I think the idea was he couldn't destroy anything valuable physically, like in the example Rupert said (buy a dozen Picassos and use them for firewood). If he had burned the stamp or ripped it up, that would've been a disqualification, but mailing it doesn't physically destroy it, just gets rid of it as an asset.
share