ENHANCE YOUR COLLECTION

A printed album is great, well laid out and systematically organised. You can see at a glance which stamps are still needed, and a pleasure when the album is complete. The only thing is, some-one else has organised it all, and there is no room for freedom and creativity. Added extras in the margins look out of place, untidy.
So, why not consider a separate collection, highlighting special aspects of your one-country collection, running parallel with what you already have. Invest in a nice album, or glean one, above all one that can be expanded at leisure over time. Use matching quality new pages, a support that the stamps deserve. If you want to re-arrange a page later, or spoil a write-up, don't worry, discard and re-write, perfection is the aim.
This is where there is room to include "little gems". They turn up by chance in collections or mixed lots that you buy, or mixed boxes at a show, or because they are in an auction catalogue, beautiful, never seen before, lovely condition, and above all, totally relevant to your collection. Sometimes you can't resist those "must have" buys that cost rather more than usual, but cost will be forgotten over the years they reside in your album.
These are the items that will enhance the pages and make yours a very personal collection. It is partly a question of display. A mundane set on a page will always be mundane in itself. But the mundane set at the top of the page, and the bottom half with a superb top value on cover, or a couple of blocks of four, especially if showing a corner margin with printer's imprint or date of print, adds a lot to that page. Suddenly the page is not only complete (the "mundane" set), but becomes special; an extra dimension derived from the chosen item below. It becomes geometrically balanced and inviting : a normal set at the top, a display piece below.
If you can add something that tells more of the story of the "mundane set", that is best.
Proofs are the obvious answer for the design aspect of the set. Progress proofs, die proofs, colour trials all tell of the progress in design, and maybe some design paths that were not taken in the end. Specimen stamps were made as a finished and accurate record : true colour examples for printers, or for UPU archives to recognise officially which stamps were issued and valid. For this reason, specimen stamps are becoming more popular with collectors who are approaching completion of the basic issues.
Blocks or marginal pieces showing plate numbers or printing dates help identify any changes that happened to the design during its life - changed colours, new watermarks, correction of a design fault.
Often a definitive design was used not only for postage stamps, but also for telegraphs, parcel stamps, revenues. For example, for KUT and for Straits Settlements Edward and KGV issues,the long sets ran into very high values, valid for both postage and for revenue use. Highly catalogued when postally used, a fiscally cancelled high value is the same design actually used for its main and true purpose - the collection of tax. It is significantly cheaper with a fiscal cancel, and a way to explain the continuation of the set in its other role.
Ugly ducklings? One comes across "nasty" (often heavy) cancels, or perfins, that many collectors disdain. However, these can tell a story too. When used for parcel, telegraph, even pen cancels from fiscal use, they show they were designed for more than use on letters. The New Zealand 1880 Q. Victoria Longtype postal fiscals were in use many years, and served for the regular post, parcels, telegraph, and fiscal use. SG lists Longtype values to £1, and to £10 for the smaller Arms type postal fiscals, on the grounds they were theoretically valid for existing postal rates. However, both sets continue to £1000 face value, and even to £150,000 for a long version of the Arms stamp printed individually for high tax land transfer documents. So that is an interesting possibility : a collection to show the various uses by value, progressively getting less and less purely postal as the face value increase.
A personal collection could also include other "special" items which enhance a basic stamp issue, for example a postcard showing the same (but better?) view depicted on a stamp, or other stamp issues matching the same subject, or a stamp depicting a town, chosen because it was also posted and postmarked in the same town as the stamp view (but don't show a FDC or maximum card, too easy, that is cheating!?)
All this is only the tip of the iceberg, the choice is individual. However, the theory remains : sparkle adds glamour, interest, and value to a collection. Increased pleasure lasts a life-time and gives increased figures in the "prices realised" when eventually sold in auction.
I'll also look at how to elevate a collection. Sounds similar, but is actually quite different, subject for another blog.