Great Britain Philatelic Society

I just sorted a few EII booklets and I was wondering myself why catalogue prices are so low. For example the booklet N1 EII Wilding. The single booklet is evaluated with 5 pounds. When you calculate all single panes you will fetch a cat.- price of 44 pounds. The cheapest cat.- price for all (single) stamps is 3.80.

Has somebody noticed this circumstance?

Denis

Hi Denis,

I read your message on two threads and noted that nobody responded. In a way I guess its obvious why, because everybody would say, simply, yes.
But your question raises a very interesting matter... well, two I think. The first is if broken down booklets fetch a much better prices when sold by the pane, how come there are any whole booklets left? I reckon that as a percentage of how many panes are in collections and how many whole booklets, the booklets should fetch a much higher price. The same question can be directed at nice study collections, and why they get broken up for separate sale. The answer in both cases has to be that most collectors are looking to fill gaps, and prefer to buy - at a higher outlay - exactly what they want or need.
The second thought that comes to mind in this context, and which might deserve a thread of it's own if people are interested, is... what is the best way to mount a booklet? What is the favoured way to display and exhibit a booklet?
I saw an "exploded booklet" on a sheet recently, and that seemed to me to be a very nice way to show the whole thing. But so far, I feel too much like a vandal taking a booklet apart.
This morning I found some KGVI sheets I'd mounted with booklets about 35 years ago - the whole booklet was entire, but I had photostatted each page and mounted it around the original. A sort of substitute exploded booklet. Frankly, it looked tacky! But quality scans in the computer could look much better.
I think you opened the box for a lot of ideas and discussion!
Cheers, Robin

Well, nobody responded to that lot. Here's a very simple question - from somebody who lives in Venezuela and never sees a stamp show, ever!

What is the most effective and interesting way to display a booklet on a sheet?

Is a complete, but exploded booklet still respected as a booklet, or as a set of individual panes?

Robin Restall

From one who has split up more books than most

Specialist single stamp collectors need many single stamps from panes, invariably their only source. Those who collect the panes do not, usually, want more than one.

Panes are need in their entireity to show perf types, even paper, coating and gum changes

Finally it has to be very good equipment to have a reproduction as good as the original.

perhaps as an after thought - the quantity available is huge still.

Whole books will always command a premium from those who collect booklets - however there are far more collectors who want single panes for a multitude of reasons. Then what does the dealer do with the rest of the book.

He throws it in a box! Hoping, eventually tp sell it to an idiot named RobinT.

Starting up a new red herring - there are very few who want skeletons (of booklets) but you try to make a complete collection!!!!

I have been spendig some time today looking at the Catalogue prices of panes versus individual stamps and have found that in the MCC Catalogue it is very common for a complete pane to be listed at a significant discount when compared to the listed prices of the individual stamps - especially when looking at missing phosphor or other errors. In the case of the Bank of England label booklet (Questa 1994) the missing phosphor pane of 4 first class is listed at £950 but the individual stamps at £600.

Barry