I Have An Album Dilemma

Not sure how to handle this. I have finally completed my mint U.S. airmails (alright, I'm short a C3a). My final acquisition is kind of odd. It's not a zeppelin, or one of the early airmails. It's a copy of C25a. I have a hingeless Davo album and there was an empty space for C25-31 and I couldn't figure out what it was for. Finally figured out that it was intended for a single copy of the C25a booklet pane. So I sent away for the booklet pane (cost me all of $1.00 plus $1.25 shipping). Now I'm wondering should I place the middle, top, or bottom copy in the album. I confess I've always thought that separating most philatelic items was akin to blasphemy, so should I leave it intact and leave the spot for it blank (kills me to do so)? So now that I've blathered on what's the verdict? Top? Middle? Bottom? Leave as is and leave space blank? Something else?

Assuming the whole thing is of no particular value, I happily dismember pairs, blocks etc. Tear away.

A booklet pane is different than most other stamps that are together. once separated they are no longer panes! Forget your album needs and think about the intrinsic value of the complete item. The way I do it is to collect the complete booklet and a complete pane of said booklet. My US Lindner album has pages for that purpose although I don't use them.

Keep the best centered copy from the pane, and dress up your mail with the others

I agree with Stuart McNeil, that booklet panes should remain intact. I collect Great Britain, and in the space in my album where SG X842, the Machin one half penny turquoise-blue with 1 phosphor band at left should go, I have left it blank, and mounted the complete unexploded booklet on the blank page opposite. The stamp is fairly scarce because it was only available in the one pound Wedgwood booklet, and, catalogues for an amazingly high price: 55 pounds mint NH, or 11,000 times its face value! Even with the fairly common trimmed perfs,it lists at 25 pounds. To separate it from its pane-mates would be to take it out of context.

How does the Davo album deal with the other airmail booklet issues?

Regardless of the answer, one should collect the way that satisfies oneself rather than be a slave to an album's layout and format choices.

I love airmails/space errors.

Howell18- you said you completed airmails sans c3a. Do you have all the other minor error listings?

I had a similar dilemma when I added a single of C10a (Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic) to my airmail collection, which stamp to add from the booklet pane. I went with the bottom stamp as it was imperforate on 3 sides and I thought it looked better. It's really a matter of personal preference IMO.

Your investment is only $2.25 Tear away and keep the best one. Then buy another pane and put it where ever you want.

Jack Kelley

You could always keep it intact elsewhere and put a scan of a single or the pane in the album.

For what it's worth, much of what I collect there have never been albums, so the dilemma posed here never presented itself. But now somewhat belatedly, someone is selling digital files of pages for state revenues. The problem is, of course, what one would do with unlisted items. I have given talks about stamp collecting and have differentiated two types of collectors: type one collectors pursue collecting by seeking to fill all the spaces on the album page. Type two collectors are not satisfied with one stamp of each catalog number. Interesting cancels aid the telling of the story of the intended use of the stamps. I am a collector of the second type, seeking all the different dates of printed cancels on the wine stamps, the battleship documentary and proprietary stamps, the 1916 proprietaries and the 1919 proprietary stamps. First day cancels on the 1933 beer stamps are a current passion; each new brewery cancel extends the list of who was producing 3.2 beer on April 7, 1933. Finding a new user of the fermented fruit juice stamps (Scott prefix REF) is a great joy. John Becker is correct. Follow your passion and don't let the album maker's decisions dictate how and what you collect.

The Davo album I have does not have any spaces for booklet panes or booklet pane singles for either airmails or general issues which makes me wonder why they included this one.

I agree with Walkman and Jack. It's a $2.25 pane, so I would say mount the best one in the space and use the others for postage. You can always get another one if you want to display a pane of 3 on a blank page.

I hate to see panes broken up to satisfy the album requirement. But if you must, why not offer up the other two singles here on stamp community forum to like thinking collectors?

I have a Davo album and I put C32 into the extra space. Here's a photo of how I did it.