United States Aloha Shirt booklet pane of 10 is hot

Stamp Market Tips by Henry Gitner and Rick Miller

On Jan. 19, 2012, the United States Postal Service issued 32¢ Aloha Shirt stamps in five designs and two formats: panes of 20 (Scott 4592-4596) and coils (Scott 4597-4601).

On June 2, 2012, five 32¢ stamps with the same Aloha Shirt designs were issued in a booklet pane of 10 (Scott 4686b). We previously tipped this booklet pane in the Stamp Market Tips column in the Nov. 14, 2016, issue of Linn’s.

Of the normally issued U.S. booklet panes in the 21st century, the 32¢ Aloha Shirts pane of 10 is the most difficult to find.

While the face value is only $3.20, the 2019 Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers values the mint booklet at $30. A mint vertical strip of five (Scott 4686a) is valued at $15. Individual mint stamps (Scott 4682-4686) are valued at $3 each.

This is a hot item. No one holds stocks of these stamps or booklet panes. Dealers are paying up to eight times face value for the booklet panes, which is remarkable for such a recent issue. Dealers pay less than that for strips and single stamps, but even those are worth buying and holding if you find them offered.

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