Registration Labels

I have always had a fascination for the pages at the back of a stamp collection.  Those come after all the mass-produced pages where you fill in all the well-known things the catalogs say you should be able to find.  And back here you find the miscellany, the things the couldn't be found in catalogs, or odd little bits that the collector felt were worth saving along with whatever country they follow.

One thing that comes up pretty regularly are registration labels.  Here is a batch from Australia that I just sold, a lot that had been sitting on various sites for about 15 years now.  These are all from the state of South Australia.  There is no indication of what year they were printed, but the very low numbers suggest early issues.

Like postmarks, I suppose it would make more sense to collect these on complete covers, where you could see the full context of how and when they were used, but I have soaked hundreds of pounds of stamps over the years, I know that they get into mixtures by various means.  Once separated out and left on their own, much of their story is lost.  But again, complete covers take up so much more space.  It's a question we all have to ponder, whether to collect items together or separately, whether we're looking for curiosities, different items or full historical documents.

These also go to show that as you accumulate items over years or decades, you can end up with quantities of things you don't normally see.  One or two of these is just "something extra", but if you have managed to tuck away 10 or 20 stockpages full, they have a certain weight of their own.  Maybe you will have accumulated a historical sequence, different printings from different time periods, and can begin to piece together the actual context of them all.  An even larger selection might begin to be a reference collection or the start of a journey of research.

Beyond the catalogs, there is so much more to see.  And it is usually found in the "back of the book" on blank pages, raising questions for curious minds.

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