Great Britain Philatelic Society

I am in the process of disposing of most of my collection (i.e. stamps mint and used), only retaining covers, with a view to forming a broad GB Postal History collection. Could any members put me on track for "required reading" for this purpose and perhaps indicate any sources recommended, especially for out-of-print items. For the record, I already have the following:-

"British Letter Mail to Overseas Destinations 1840-75" - Moubray
"British Postal Rates 1937-2000" - Johnson and Peet
"The Scottish Additional Halfpenny Mail Tax" - Hodgson and Sedgewick

I suggest Allan Oliver and Stuart Tanne UK inland and overseas letter rates available as download from Allan's website. The big question is what you are most into! Sounds like pstage rates. I am trying to get together a collection of single frankings of all pre-decimal GB stamps used correctly. Quits surprising what comes up. SG504 seems to me to be probably the most difficult normal stamp to get acccordingly as 1d was only the rate for a short time on Empire postcards or some printed matter during the life of that stamp available in millions combined but try and find it on its own!
regards
James

From the point of view of trying to figure out what the markings or rates on a cover are, I would include the following:

Postmarks of Great Britain and Ireland by Alcock and Holland - still indispensable.
UK Letter Rates by Tabeart
England's PH and the set of County Catalogues by Willcocks/Jay
Postal Markings of Scotland to 1840 by Bruce Auckland
Post Office Numbers by Brumell
The British Post Office by Dendy Marshall (also has a good section on numerals which formed the basis for Brumell)

and there are various good London-specific books.

James,

Thanks for your input. Your mention of SG 540 raised a flag for me. I have a quantity of covers awaiting assembly into my new collection, and I remembered this one which I bought on e-bay some time ago for very little. It has been used commercially for printed matter (gum of envelope undisturbed, so obviously unsealed). It's a pity about the caption on the front, added with a different typewriter (probably by a collector), but nice, I think. I have confirmed from Johnson and Peet that the caption is in fact correct!