The Basic Rule of Stamp and Postal History Conservation

Today I was breaking up a collection of Latvian stamps and a collection of pre-philatelic Gibraltar covers. This rather depressing task reminded me of the one basic rule of Conservation:

Aim to pass on your stock or your collection to the next owner in as good a condition as you received it

This rule says nothing about cleaning or repairing; that’s a separate topic. But the rule can be converted to some simple tips, some handy hints, about how to treat stamps and covers.

STAMPS

  Do not put hinges on mint stamps or used stamps

  Always use tweezers to handle stamps

  Store albums and stockbooks upright; don’t lay them flat

  A slip-case helps keep out dust and sunlight. If it doesn’t have a slipcase, then don’t use the top row of a stockbook.

  If you are going to divide a block of imperforate stamps, use a cutting knife and a metal ruler – don’t use scissors

  No damp storage, please!

COVERS

  Do not write on them, in pencil or ink. Ever. Your scribbles do not add value with the one exception of Agathon Faberge's and then not even all of his. Expect a discount from any dealer who prices by writing on their stock. Do not ask any Expert to sign your cover. Ever. Look what has happened to classic Italian covers.

  Do not use photographic mounting corners. About one in ten will find a way to stick to your cover and when someone removes it from your mounts, the cover will tear.
  Do not use sellotape for any purpose or metal staples (yes, today I was handling a collection full of metal staples)
 Do not trim roughly opened covers, open them up “for display”, or re-fold them. Keep the cover in the state you received it.
Store albums upright and out of sunlight. Don’t lay them flat. Use slipcases.

  Think twice about using black backing to enhance the appearance of your cover; cheap black paper is often acidic

   No damp storage, please!

Well, that’s not a long list. Maybe ten percent of dealers and collectors follow something like those simple rules, which is why so much philatelic material is now damaged beyond repair.

I feel sorry for collectors in Italy...

One of the nice things about collecting is that you can decide to collect anything you like and you alone make up the rules which say what is inside and outside your collecting field. But I am afraid I do expect collectors - and dealers - to understand something about collectible objects.

Those objects start their histories outside of our collections and when they arrive in our collections, one of our responsibilities is to conserve them in the best state we can, so that they endure and can pass on to others. In this, our collection - however modest - is like a museum collection. It is a small part of a heritage - sometimes our own, sometimes somebody else's - and we should look after it.

This is better understood now in stamp collecting and postal history than it once was. Most collectors no longer put hinges on anything, stamps or postal history items, and they no longer write on them as if they were scrap paper. Dealers still scribble prices on covers and cards and they need to be told not to. Some damage - however minor - is always caused when those prices are rubbed out by a collector or the next dealer along.

Because these things have only been understood in the recent past, we inherit a great deal of vandalised material. Different philatelic cultures have different traditions, some worse than others. Italy is home to one of the worst philatelic cultures from the point of view of understanding and valuing the collectible object and I feel sorry for collectors there who have to live with the legacy of their past.

I still get sent Italian auction catalogues but I rarely look at them - it is so depressing - and I don't bid. Today I glanced at a new Bolaffi catalogue which arrived in the post and my eye was caught by a Romanian cover:

Click on Image to Enlarge

Well, there is a very beautiful 54 Parale Bull's Head - just look at the margins! But then look at the cover. Autographs and handstamps and annotations all over it. Just count them up! Worse, they have changed since the photograph was taken which appears in Dr Heimbuechler's Bull's Heads of Moldavia:

Click on Image to Magnify

Compare them carefully: some new graffiti have appeared and some old ones have been removed. The latter is a warning: where the old graffiti have been removed, there will be surface damage to the letter.

The letter is estimated at 7500 euro. I am always on the look out for Bull's Heads but I won't be bidding. There is too  much unattractive damage here to what was once - a very long time ago - a very desirable collectible object. Unfortunately, it fell into the hands of people who I don't think understood that.

Stamp Exhibitions: Could these be the new FIP Rules for Judging Exhibits ...

Recently, I bought some material from the estate of a collector who had won Gold Medals in international stamp exhibitions. It surprised me that much of the postal history I had acquired was of below average quality. It was obvious that some of this was the fault of the collector: he had opened out envelopes, re-folded entire letters, trimmed roughly opened envelopes, scribbled on his material as if it was scrap paper. How do you get to win Gold Medals if you do that, I wondered?

I took a look at the FIP (Federation Internationale de Philatelie) rules for exhibits in the Traditional Philately and Postal History classes. They say that exhibits should aim to show material of the “highest available quality”. But when it comes to the allocation of Points by juries, only 10 points out of 100 are awarded for “Condition”.

I therefore propose a very simple rule change:

FIP wishes to encourage recognition of the  fact that stamps and covers are autonomous, historically interesting artefacts which deserve careful treatment, handling and conservation in a state as close as possible to that in which they originally existed. In order to discourage dealer, expert and collector damage to items, FIP will increase the points allocated to the category “Condition” from 10 to 30, reducing other categories as indicated in the revised schedule.

Specifically, FIP Juries will regard all of the following as things which reduce the Condition of a particular item and make it ineligible for the award of Maximum points:

Stamps: hinges on mint stamps; absence of gum on stamps which were originally gummed; ownership, dealer or expert handstamps; ink and pencilled notes of any kind. Exhibits should be mounted in such a way as to enable Jurors to examine the backs of stamps.

Postal History: opening out of covers, trimming, re-folding; owner, dealer or expert handstamps; all ink and pencil markings including dealer prices and expert signatures (especially when in close proximity to stamps); evidence of the use of an eraser to remove pencilled markings. Exhibits should be mounted in such a way as to enable Jurors to examine the backs of covers and cards.

Where a photographic Expert certificate is held, it should be mounted on the back of the relevant page of the exhibit. No other form of Expertising (handstamps, signatures) will be accepted.

Exhibitors are advised that in some cases it may cause further damage to an item to erase a pencilled note and they should use their judgment in deciding whether or not to erase. In some instances, they may wish to indicate on their Exhibit why they have decided not to erase such graffiti.

Er, that’s it. 

Collectors and Collectibles

Recently, I was asked to value a large collection. The owner came to my house and went out for a walk, leaving me the collection. He knew it would take me some time. In fact, I gave up very quickly. It was impossible to examine the stamps.

They were mint and a lot depended on whether they were* or **, hinged or never hinged. But they had been mounted on what we call "Home Made Pages" using a complicated system with the black mounts hinged rather than stuck to the A4 pages. Every time I tried to remove a stamp from a mount to look at the back, the mount promptly fell off the page. Worse, the pages were organised back to back in the cheapest office stationery protectors. Every time I tried to remove one page, the backing page came too and stamps fell out from the back.

It was a valuable collection but I gave up.  Everything was falling apart and I did not want to be responsible.

Some of the stamps - they were Russian - had chalk lines ( varnish lines) on the front and they had aged - become very visible. I think this is sometimes the effect of contact with cheap plastics.

Many thousands of pounds had been spent on the collection. A few pounds on the home made albums. It is a false economy and not the first time I have seen it.

I have also seen albums stored flat, not standing up, so that stamps stick to the pages. I have seen albums stored in damp conditions. And of course, I have seen cheap hinges which won't peel off, photo corners which damage minisheets, covers and cards, pencil notes scribbled on covers, covers cut down to make them "look better" and so on and so on. Collectors are the enemies of collectibles.

Recently, I was going through some pre-philatelic letters. Not for the first time, I was surprised at their very good condition. How come a letter of 1814 is so much better preserved than a letter of 1914?

It must have something to do with the very high quality paper often used before letter-writing became a mass activity. But there is a more important reason: there are few collectors for pre-philatelic mail, the letters have passed through fewer hands, they have been in fewer dealer boxes, and they have not been ironed or cut-down to look good on an album page.

A collectible is something worth conserving. It's something worth storing and displaying in ways which do not damage it. It's something which easily loses value. Just think, for every one thousand Penny Blacks which entered collections say 100 or 150 years ago, how many now are in as good condition as a Penny Black which happened to get lost inside an envelope left inside a book, 100 or 150 years ago, and only now re-discovered?

"Archive Fresh" for a Cover is the Equivalent of a Fresh Unmounted Mint ** Stamp

From the very beginning, dealers and collectors have tried hard to damage the objects they sell and collect.

Remember that once upon a time, collectors did not use hinges - they licked their mint stamps and stuck them to the album page. Then they discovered hinges - but as new hinges were added, the stamps quickly became stamps with a hump.

Finally, dealers and collectors discovered hingeless mounts and the worst damage to mint stamps came to an end. Tweezers also stopped much of the damage done by sticky fingers, though use tweezers carelessly when taking stamps from a stockbook and you can very quickly damage perforations.

What about covers? From the Archive to the Album page, here are some of the things which dealers and collectors still do to covers:

- They write on them. Dealers pencil their prices and collectors pencil their random thoughts. Arrows are popular. Occasionally, to make the point clear, they use Biro. I have even seen typed descriptions added to covers, saying things like Rare!!  underlined twice
- They take scissors or a knife to them to trim them or cut them to fit the album page
- They carefully pencil in bits of the cancellation which are not clear to the naked eye
- They use hinges to mount their cards and covers
- They have a handstamp made with their name and stamp their name onto the cover, preferably in smudgy violet ink
- They send their covers off to "Experts". They have their own ways of damaging the Object. Italian graffiti artists autograph the cover, as close to the stamp as they can get. Sometimes the whole Italian Team signs.

German Experts traditionally handstamp the cover on the back but sometimes the front - a position also favoured by Italian Experts who use handstamps.

And so on. Thus do items which were once "Archive Fresh" turn into the much-abused covers you find in Dealers' Boxes or optimistic Auctions.

If you insist on Unmounted Mint **  for your stamps then you should also insist on Archive Fresh for your covers.

Quality Matters - and Why It is Hard to Find

Some years ago, as a novice dealer, I bought in auction a stock of Soviet stamps housed in numerous stockbooks. What I failed to notice was that the owner had used all the top rows in his stockbooks and then exposed them to dust and sunlight. The result? I was the new owner of a stock of unsaleable sets - the quality of the top row material was too degraded to be combined with the material from the other rows.

Over time, most philatelic material has been damaged and its value reduced by the dealers, collectors and beneficiaries of collectors' wills through whose hands it has passed.

Dealers may no longer put hinges on mint stamps, but they still write on any postal history item that comes their way. Rub out the old prices, write on your own. Eventually, it takes its toll. The average piece of Victorian postal stationery has had Higgins and Gage numbers, dimensions,catalogue values and prices written on it so many times as to be virtually worthless. It goes straight into my £1 boxes.

Collectors still put hinges on mint stamps and some still prefer to pick up their stamps by wetting their thumb, as if tweezers had never been invented. Combine enough saliva with the damp cupboards which are a Must Have for many collectors and you soon have a collection foxed from start to finish.

Postal history is at the mercy of another range of collector habits. True, the excitement created by the invention of the red biro has passed as has the enthusiasm for writing the catalogue values of the stamps next to them on the cover - and in ink. Nowadays, covers are more likely to be subject to trimming and refolding.

One should not be too hard on dealers and collectors, however. Only the Experts have thought that the thing to do with a beautiful and rare cover is to sign your name on it - in the case of Italian experts, in a position where you cannot fail to be distracted by it.

Quality matters. It adds value. And it is a commodity in ever-diminishing supply.