Cancelled to Order (CTO)

Cancelled to order, almost always abbreviated CTO, describes stamps that a postal administration has cancelled without them ever carrying mail. They are cancelled deliberately — often by the sheet — and sold to stamp dealers and packet makers, frequently at a discount to face value. To the untrained eye, a CTO looks like a used stamp; to a collector, the difference matters.

How CTOs Are Made

Postal authorities or their agents apply a cancellation to stamps that are still in sheets or panes. Because the stamps are cancelled flat, before they have been separated or stuck to envelopes, the cancel is often:

• Neat and precisely placed, frequently just catching one corner of each stamp.
• Printed rather than handstamped in some cases, the cancel being applied at the same time as the stamp was printed.
• Identical — the same date and town on every copy.

Identifying a CTO

The most reliable clue is on the back. A genuinely used stamp has normally been stuck on an envelope and later soaked off, removing the gum. A CTO has never been stuck down, so it often retains its full original gum under a clean-looking cancel. Other clues include:

• A cancellation date before or on the issue date for an entire set.
• The same postmark across whole sets.
• Perfect cancels on high values that would rarely be used on mail.

Where CTOs Come From

CTOs have been produced by many countries. During the Cold War, several Eastern Bloc postal administrations sold vast quantities of CTO stamps to Western dealers as a source of hard currency. Many smaller nations and territories whose issues were produced mainly for collectors did the same. As a result, CTOs make up a large share of the cheap “used” packets sold to beginners.

Collecting CTOs

CTOs are not forgeries — they are genuine stamps with genuine cancellations — and there is nothing wrong with collecting them, particularly for thematic collections. However, a collector building a serious used collection should distinguish them from postally used copies, which are almost always scarcer and more valuable. When a catalogue gives a used price, check its notes to see whether that price applies to CTO or postally used copies.