How Do Fellow Platers Handle Their Duplicates - Seeking Inspiration

Greetings all. I've been plating the 1851 3c for several years now and have began to accumulate a number of duplicates for various positions on the various plates. Below are my duplicates for the left pane of Plate 3.

I feel like I need a better way of organizing these. It seems messy and as much as I try to keep them in numerical order I am always finding one that wont fit on the row it is suppose to and so I stick it somewhere else out of order. Obviously I could start another plate 3 but I'm not ready to do that yet. I'm wondering how others manage these and hope you can share your methods.

Regards,
Harper1249

Hi Harper —

Very nice assemblage of duplicates!! I love seeing assemblages like this.

As a "collector" — I personally find it very difficult to let anything go — especially after investing the time to plate it.

I have thousands of plating duplicates — and I use them to create specialized "side bar" collections. Here are a few examples to think about:

— On plate L3, it goes without saying that you can create multiple reconstructions of the "three rows" — as that is where it all started for Dr. Chase. You can never have too many "3-rows" reconstructions!!

— If a clear dated CDS (month and day) — build a calendar collection.

— If the CDS captures the full "state" abbreviation — build a collection showing all the states of the Union as they existed on July 1, 1851 (this is way tougher than one might imagine).

—If a colored cancel — build an assemblage showing the progression from pale to deep (e.g., red and blue cancels being the most common next to black).

— If a clear "year dated" cancel — build an assemblage from 1851 to 1857.

— Build a color chart.

— Creat an album page showing examples of the reliefs.

— Build an assemblage showing the 40 different recuts.

— Take the "best of the best" — and assemble a showing of "premium quality" examples.

The possibilities are endless with this issue.

Like you — I have a stock book of all the plating dups that don't make it to one of my "side bar" collections — and I just organize them by plate and pane — and don't get too concerned with trying to keep the stamps in order by position. Still — I find it very difficult to part with any of my dups — so the stock pages just keep on growing!!

Hope this gives you a few ideas!!

Regards // ioagoa

Have you ever exchanged different duplicate plate positions with other specialists for the ones that you and/or they need? It is always nice to find fellow collectors who share the same or similar specialized philatelic interests, especially to talk with and to exchange information and duplicates with.

Thank you all for great ideas and sorry I'm just now responding. It was a crazy week. I'm definitely wanting to assemble something based on color but need to learn more about that.

Thanks again for the suggestions,
Harper1249

Sorry, late to this thread.
Something that I've started to do when sorting through my "collection"
I pull aside examples of each Recut Triangle combination.

Most have multiple plate positions so I only include one example for each combination. Some combinations I don't have so it's another thing for me to keep an eye out for.

It gets pretty interesting when you're looking for some of the more unique combinations.

It makes for a page of stamps that aren't very interesting except to some of us. But its fun.

Edit to add an example:
Below is an example of recut 12 + 17.

12 being 2 lines upper left triangle 17 being 1 line lower right triangle. That combination has 138 stamps listed so I have chosen one to mount on the page. 20R2L