CANADA – Sc #70 – 5¢– 1897 – DARK BLUE, BLUISH – UNUSED - NH - A KILLER SPACE FILLER

OK I need to provide a little background here. This stamp is from a recently acquired collection. Although it was an older collection the collector transitioned from paper hinges to an early form of hingeless mounts. The hingeless mounts were what I call a form of “Plastic Wrap”. It was much thicker than the plastic wrap used for food and could be folded around the stamp so as to totally encapsulate the stamp. Too say the least that was very forward thinking of the collector. However, these hingeless mounts resulted in “Glazed Gum” which the Philatelic Foundation defines as follows:

Glazed Gum - Original gum in an altered state due to its softening and reforming, often while in a plastic mount.

                   OK Now for the stamp

A nice looking stamp with good color

Missing top right corner perf

Nice centering

Never Hinged

No creases or tears

The centering definitely supports a grade of VF.

We can all go to our stamp catalogues and see that a hingeless VF specimen of this stamp sells for $500. The question is what is a fair valuation for this specific stamp?? How does Glazed Gum equate to previous being hinged since both conditions is the result of the method selected to mount the stamp into a stamp album? My starting price also reflexes the missing top corner and glazed gum.