FEPA News

FEPA NEWS 45 39 FEPA Exhibiting If you are collecting the departmental stamps of South Australia, it is worth your while reminding the viewer (jury) that these stamps were overprinted on stamps that were basically waste, stamps of inferior centring etc., that were not considered worthy of selling to the public as normal postage stamps. If you are collecting the stamps of Samoa it may be difficult even with the best of wills to score high on importance because of its small size and remote location that was not a calling point for the principal shipping routes. But the stamps will have been printed in much smaller numbers than stamps of the same era from one of the ‘important’ big countries. In my own case, even the more ‘common’ stamps from Transvaal were issued in far smaller numbers than several of the internationally known ‘rarities’. For example, 21,440 copies were issued of the Transvaal 1877 1d printed on blue paper, compared to 21,844 copies sold of the USA 1893 Columbus $5 stamp – and on top of that the survival rate of Transvaal stamp is much lower than of the Columbus $5. Fig 3. 21,440 copies of the ‘common’ Transvaal 1877 1d printed in red on blue paper were printed against 21,844 copies sold of the ‘rare’ USA 1893 Columbus $5 stamp. If you make use of rarity statements in the collection, space should be found on the introduction page to explain what “rare” means (e.g. “less than ten known copies”) and explain what the source is of this information – and if it is based on your own registration of items. Presentation Presentation is the one judging criteria one might choose not to comment on in the introduction page. Presentation is purely about aesthetics and does not require philatelic insight to judge. It follows that it can be hard to say anything meaningful to explain the mounting of the exhibit. It is perhaps better not to try. Changing your introduction page The above reflections are not something I have arrived at overnight. It is a result of a process and the process will continue as new views and trends in philatelic collecting and exhibiting develop. Once you engage in the process of modernising your own introduction page you will also come to new realisations that may impact the collection on a whole. You may find that there is a lack of logic to the treatment in part of your exhibit or you may realise that what you show is unbalanced. At the same time, you are very likely to develop new ideas for enhancing the introduction page when busy with remounting a section of the collection. Working seriously with the introduction page can indeed renew your interest and revitalise your collection. All the same time, it is also hard work. Over many years of exhibiting, my own introduction pages have undergone a dramatic evolution. When I look back at some of my earlier efforts, I can clearly see that the introduction was not of much help to the spectator but I am quite sure that, at the time, it was the best I could come up with. In all modesty, I believe that today I have a rather good, telling and constructive introduction page. But without all the preceding versions I would never have reached this point.