Souvenir Pages Out Of Favor?

Do folks still collect these? I am wondering if they are still popular with collectors or have they been written off as contrived shovelware from USPS. I do own a complete set, including a rare SP1 cancelled in NY's stampshow, which is the rare form, not from the NYPO.

I feel like the unofficial pages carry a premium, but its a 0 demand product, since noone wants to maintain full sheets of anything.

I will say they are gorgeous, and people generally like browsing them. I can share a few if people want to see some cool ones.

I bought a huge lot of them at an auction and sold them off one by one - and then the balance as a lot. Purchases - I think - was mainly from people who were interested in the subject of the page or panel - not the philatelic aspect. The lot that sold at the end was - I think - to a collector of stamps and these items - but not sure. None of it generated much money - but then I paid almost nothing for the auction lot.

I know a topical collector who likes them, as they're another potential related item to put in her exhibits.

You're right that you can pick them up, even the scarce early ones, for very little. I'm not sure if they were ever "in favor", really; they've always been a bit of a niche product. But souvenir pages sell for more than most unofficial subscription products do though, that's for sure!

I have been a BOB collector for more than 30 years.

In that time I personally know of a grand total of one collector who collects these.

Other folks went to him to look for a single item perhaps for a topical collection or something, but he is the only person I know of who specifically collects them.

I have a collection of souvenir pages. I find them more interesting than FDCs.

What are Souvenir Pages please? anyone have an image?

Here is an error example. The stamp is missing under the cancel. There is a separate product called Commemorative Panels or something like that. They were available on subscription from USPS.

Thank you Al.

They are interesting to look at but I have never known anyone who actually collected them. There do seem to be a couple of collectors of them out there as they seem to sell on ebay when the seller is not asking a silly price for them. Most seem to sell for a dollar or two but some get a bit more. If I had a lot of them I would list them on ebay with a starting bid of $1 and be happy with whatever they sold for.

Don't collect them as a rule, but if I see a special one at a good price, I will get it. At a paper ephemera show several years ago, I saw a dealer with these and bought them for $1 each:

SP534 (1893a) booklet pane
SP572 (1948a) 'C' booklet pane
SP674 (2122) $10.75 Express Mail single
SP676 (2124) plate strip of 2 - '4'
SP686 (2134) plate strip of 2 - '2'

I don't have any of these, but there's a similar item (Ersttagsblatt) from Germany, and I do have a couple of those for issues of topical interest.

You can buy many off ebay in lots often at a $1 or less. Most are easy to obtain up to around 2000 or so. I have quite a few spares of some since I bought several lots off ebay. There are some varieties (like different paper watermarks) but Scott is not useful for this.

I think that one of their biggest drawbacks is they are hard to display. They are so big they take up an entire page.

I would not recommend trying to mount them like a stamp. You just slip into a protective sleeve (can put back to back so 2 per sleeve) and put in a binder. You can just flip through them. If you wanted some unique presentation you could have the souvenir page on one side of the page and then possibly a mint sample, block, or FDC on the opposite side.

But back to the original OP question, they probably were never very popular among traditional collectors. It was a contrived collectible after people started taking Post Office posters and adding a stamp then getting a first day cancel.

Tons of them end up as ballast in large lots from places like Rasdale. They are often housed in office binders and take up copious amounts of space. They usually end up in that great philatelic dumpster in the sky.

When the USPS first announced the 'official' page (1972), I signed up for the subscription. After accumulating them for the first couple of years I eventually stopped the subscription (1977) and gave them away. They were never really popular and I attributed this to the fact that most catalogs did not list them at that time. In my opinion they also felt 'contrived' and smacked a bit of scamming FDC industry at the time.
Don