Hi, great question and I also have accumulated covers of this series. Please overlook my bluntness at knee jerk reaction to choices:
By the postmark date? (reasonable ?, key would be in groups by rate period. That is "natural" given reason for make-up; e.g., 1c for those letter rates that were a cent higher than prior, etc.)
By the final total postage? (perhaps silly ?, that's the knee-jerk reply. Now that there's been time typing this far, it occurs to me it's a round-about (alternate) way of asking, "by rate?" or "by rate period? [ala by postmark date?]
By what they are paired with? (mmmm, maybe overlays with 'by rate' choice).
For me, it got a little tough when there were more than one denomination stuck on. All above said, here's my current choice:
Since I'm studying the stamps themselves as used, I start with grouping by denomination. (If more than one, I pick the highest value to choose the group; e.g., 1c+10c used, goes in 10c group.)
Within denomination, I keep the pane types together then the coils, since their origins in the timeframe the series arose were miles apart (or perhaps better, because no coil was generally available to the public for their use, since they were large rolls sold to business mailers).
There are only six denominations. So within those six groups if going that way, then one can sort by rate period for instance. (I can see someone wanting to flip this, they would start highest grouping by rate period and sort by denomination therein. Maybe there are six or less of these periods if one chooses a cut-off and assigns last group to "and after", like when the Fruit series launched or its last denomination / format was issued.)
It's one of those too-many-options decisions for me. Let me know your ideas. |
Posted 05/09/2025 4:04 pm
