The Open (or Shut) Case for Booklet Collecting
by John Burnett (ESC3)
Originally published in Linns Stamp News
Stamp booklets have long been a fascinating facet of collecting the stamps of Canada.
You will find at our annual BNAPEX convention many collectors will exhibit booklets as a single subject or as an enhancement to their stamp collections in general.
Figure 1 shows a traditional Canadian booklet produced in 1955 (Scott and Canada Specialized BK50) containing a pane of six 4¢ violet Queen Elizabeth II definitive stamps (340b)
Figure 1 - The front cover of the 1955 Canadian booklet containing a pane of six 4¢ Queen Elizabeth stamps.
This pane is stapled together between two card covers. Other booklets are stitched together, creating an additional collectible variety to add to your album.
Collections of booklets can be assembled to make very interesting showing of the subject.
Exhibiting booklets, however, often presents the owner with a couple of hard questions about how best to display the subject.
Is it best to open an unopened booklet, or leave it closed and bound, as in the example in figure 1?
If you open it, you can show the stamps inside. But if you leave it closed, it maybe easier to show the various distinctive booklet covers for a given issue, and you don't lose whatever premium the booklet may have as an intact collectible.
I happen to be a stamp collector, and I believe in showing the stamps. But, given their value, I would think long and hard before I risked opening one of the scarcer early Canadian booklets.
For collectors who acquire more modern and affordable Canadian booklets, the answer is fairly simple purchase two examples and show the booklet both ways.
Figure 2 shows a booklet issued in 1978 (BK79) containing a pane of 25 14¢ red and black Queen Elizabeth II definitive stamps (716b). The booklet is shown both open in figure 2 to display the stamps, and closed in figure 2a, to show the cartoon design of the cover. It is important to show this booklet closed as there were five different cartoon cover designs for the covers which were issued to promote Canada's postal code. The back cover, also bearing a cartoon design is the same for all five booklets and shows the booklets original price of $3.50.
 
Figure 2 - This 1978 Canadian booklet, which contains a single pane of 25 14¢ Queen Elizabeth II definitives and two labels, is inexpensive enough to be displayed both open to show the stamps and closed showing only the front cover art. Five different cover art designs exist.
This particular is further complicated by the fact that the covers not only were printed in black ink on plain, cream-colored stock, but were also printed in purple ink on a cream-colored stock on a wavy line background.
Canada Specialized presently lists 311 different booklet collectibles issued by Canada. The vast majority of these are not expensive and would make a marvelous collection.
The booklets issued between 1900 and 1935 are expensive but number only 27 items.
During the reign of King George VI from 1937 to 1951, there were 17 booklets issued with 67 basic varieties. The majority of these consist of booklet cover design varieties and separate versions of the cover text in French and English, although nine of the booklets were available in bilingual form.
By my count, including all permutations, the King George VI era yields 140 individual collectible booklets; most of them quiet affordable for the average stamp collector.
If you mounted two booklets per page, an exhibit from this 15 year period would require about four sixteen page frames to show.
This is yet another example where you can start small and grow your collection into a rather large exhibit.
In the era of Queen Elizabeth Ii Canada has issued more than 266 booklets, a number that is growing rapidly as Canada Post issues more and more commemorative and special stamps in booklet format.
By my count, including all listed varieties, you would need to amass a collection of some 350 booklets to be complete for the current reign.
Most of these currently catalog between $2 and $25, but there are two or three very rare and valuable errors.
Certainly the scarcest of these is a 1985 Canadian Forts booklet with the horizontal perforations missing between the top row of the stamps and the top margin labels (BK87a). Only one has ever been found, and it catalogs $5,000.
Beginning with the 1991 Public gardens commemorative booklet (BK130), most Canadian booklets are available in two versions.
On the first, which comes from so called field stock made available at post offices and other postal outlets, the flap of the booklet is glued. Some field stock booklets also lack inscriptions on the binding tab of the pane.
On the second, from philatelic stocks provisioned for and sold to collectors, the flap of the booklet is not glued, and the binding tabs often have marginal inscriptions.
The smallest category of conventional modern booklets, are Canada's prestige booklets. These are very fancy productions which, in addition to the stamps, contain multi colored pages extolling the booklets subject.
Figure 3 shows the front of the prestige booklet honoring the T. Eaton Company (BK 169). It contains a pane of 10 43¢ commemoratives (1510a) saluting the founder of the Canadian department stores.
The booklet comprises 10 pages that describe the history of this old Canadian firm. It's a marvelous show case for the T. Eaton Co., but a considerable challenge to the collector who must grapple with which of these ten pages to show and how to show them.
Figure 3 - The T. Eaton prestige booklet in it's cellophane wrapper contains 10 1994 43¢ commemorative stamps honoring T. eaton, and a multi colored 10-page history of the Canadian department store he founded.
Pursuing Canadian booklets is a challenge, but one that can be very rewarding.
Most booklet prices still are within the budget of the average collector, and material is fairly easy to find.
Jump in and have some fun!
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