PREFACE

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Come and chat in my stamp-den, that I may encircle you with fine-spun webs of curious and rare interest, and bind you for ever to Philately, by which name we designate the love of stamps. The "den" presents no features which would at first sight differentiate it from a snug well-filled library, but a close inspection will reveal that many of the books are not the products of Paternoster Row or of Grub Street. Yet in these stamp-albums we shall read, if you will have the kindness to be patient, many things which are writ upon the postage-stamps of all nations, as in a world of books.

It is not given to all collectors to know their postage-stamps. There is the collector who merely accumulates specimens without studying them. He has eyes, but he does not see more than that this stamp is red and that one is blue. He has ears, but they only hear that this stamp cost £1,000, and that this other can be purchased wholesale at sixpence the dozen. What shall it profit him if he collect many stamps, but never discover their significance as factors in the rapid spread of civilisation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? The true student of stamps will extract from them all that they have to teach; he will read from them the development of arts and manufactures, social, commercial and political progress, and the rise and fall of nations.

To the young student our pleasant pastime of stamp-collecting has to offer an encouragement to habits of method and order, for without these collecting can be productive of but little pleasure or satisfaction. It will train him to be ever observant of the minutiÆ that matter, and it will broaden his outlook as he surveys his stamps "from China to Peru."

The present volume is not intended as a complete guide to the postage-stamps of the world; it is rather a companion volume to the standard catalogues and numerous primers already available to the collector. It has been my endeavour to indicate what counts in modern collecting, and to emphasise those features of the higher Philately of to-day which have not yet been fully comprehended by the average collector. Some of my readers may consider that I have unduly appraised the value in a stamp collection of pairs and blocks, proofs and essays, of documental matter, and also that too much has been demanded in the matter of condition. But all these things are of greater importance than is realised by even the majority of members of the philatelic societies. Condition in particular is a factor which, if disregarded, will not only result in the formation of an unsatisfactory collection, but will lessen, if not ruin, the collection as an investment. It has been thought that as time passed on the exacting requirements of condition would have to be relaxed through the gradual absorption of fine copies of old stamps in great collections. The effect has, however, been simply to raise the prices of old stamps in perfect condition. It may be taken as a general precept that a stamp in fine condition at a high price is a far better investment than a stamp in poor condition at any price.

In preparing the illustrations for this volume I am indebted to several collectors and dealers, chiefly to Mr. W. H. Peckitt, who has lent me some of the fine items from the "Avery" collection, to Messrs. Stanley Gibbons, Ltd., whose name is as a household word to stamp-collectors all over the world, and to Messrs. Charles Nissen, D. Field, and Herbert F. Johnson.

I should also be omitting a very important duty if I failed to acknowledge the general readiness of collectors, and especially of my colleagues the members of the Junior Philatelic Society both at home and abroad, in keeping me constantly au courant with new information connected with the pursuit of Philately. Without such assistance in the past, this work, and the score of others which have come from my pen, could never have been undertaken; and perhaps the best token of my appreciation of so many kindnesses will be to beg (as I now do) the favour of their continuance in the future.

FRED J. MELVILLE.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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