As some of my single country collections have lately reached over 50% completion level, I’m beginning to approach the situation where I have to start making some major decisions about the final storage and output of these collections. Should I continue to keep them on stock book, or transfer them to pre-printed stamp album pages. The more I have thought about it, the more I believe I need to break the mold. Pick up the best of both worlds so to speak.
Yesterday (and as well as today) I got involved into a somewhat “interesting” discussion on MyPhilately that gathered tens of comments in matter of hours. Unfortunately, it turned also into a catfight between stamp collectors and philatelists in few responses. I can hear you saying “again…sigh”. My thoughts precisely. Why on earth can’t stamp collectors and philatelists co-exist in peace (especially on Valentine’s time)?
Most stamp catalogs do a somewhat decent job in displaying the various quality levels of cancelled stamps. However, IMO there are surprisingly large international variations to what is desirable / non-desirable.
Not all stamps are born equal. There can be lots of minor quality flux that fits into printers guidelines of acceptable variation and printing conditions. In addition there are all sorts of errors, freaks and oddities (like printers waste) that ends up one way or to another to stamp collectors albums.
Keeping on eye for the quality is something I think many collectors do. Personally I admit that I’m in constant process of enhancing the quality of items in my collection. For the next couple of posts I’ll be writing up some notes about quality in general as well as diving more in-depth into world of measuring quality (grading). Though stamps and collectors have been around for 160 years, this topic continues to be still under heavy debate (to my amazement).
I’m a non-smoker, so one of my greatest annoyances is ending up with otherwise good stuff that has cigarette smell all over. So how do I get rid off the smell?