In the sesquicentennial year of The Royal Philatelic Society London, this book is a permanent and representative record of how and what many of the Society’s members collect in 2019.

During the 150 years that the Society has existed, collections and collecting methods have changed dramatically from 19th century albums with printed pages to postal history and the wide variety of subjects now studied using computer-set as well as handwritten pages to display material.

Each page shows a scan of the complete sheets submitted by Fellows and Members of the Society, all of whom were eligible to contribute as many pages as they wanted. Many people contributed a single page, while others chose to contribute more than that. Some people specially prepared pages, while others just provided a copy of an existing album page. Computer-set, typed and handwritten pages were all acceptable, in any language, the idea being that the sheets would include a narrative about the covers or stamps.

In assembling the book, the aim has been to incorporate ‘significant’ pages. Rarities, errors, proofs, essays and postal history of note met the criteria, as did inexpensive covers or philatelic items that had a well-researched or interesting history or story.

The pages have been arranged alphabetically by surname of the contributors, who paid for their pages to be included in the book. This is similar to what was a very common practice, particularly in Victorian and Edwardian times, when books would be published once a sufficient number of subscribers had paid towards the costs of production.

When considering the activity of forming a philatelic collection, one of the most compelling comments on collecting in general and the collection of stamps in particular was published just a few years before the establishment of The Philatelic Society, London. John Edward Gray of the British Museum published a catalogue in 1863 called A Hand Catalogue of Postage Stamps for the use of Collectors, and he included this summary:

The collecting of Postage Stamps is a fashion not confined to this country, or to a single class; for collections are frequently to be seen in the drawing room of the luxurious, in the study of the enlightened, and the locker of the schoolboy …

The fashion has been ridiculed, as all fashions will be; but if postage stamps are properly studied, collected, and arranged, there is no reason why they may not be quite as instructive and entertaining as the collection of birds, butterflies, shells, books, engravings, coins, or other objects. The use and charm of collecting any kind of object is to educate the mind and the eye to careful observation, accurate comparison, and just reasoning on the differences and likenesses which they present …

What is clear when one looks through this book is that the Society’s members not only collect postage stamps, but also postal history, and this ‘fashion’ has grown to embrace items that went through the post before the introduction of adhesive stamps as well as mail franked by stamps. As John G. Hendy, Curator of the Record Room at the General Post Office, wrote in his book The Postmarks of the British Isles from 1840 to 1876 published in 1909 by Stanley Gibbons Limited, just a few years after His Majesty King Edward VII granted the Society permission to use the prefix Royal in 1906:

The collection of stamps and postmarks taken conjointly, and the proper arrangement of them, form undoubtedly an interesting hobby; some of the variations in their types are so slight that they require minute examination and comparison to prevent them from being overlooked; and the fact of obtaining postmarks from so many parts of a country leads to a careful study of geography and history.

Just as the membership of the Society is drawn from a great many countries, the members who have contributed to the book live across the globe, stretching from the United States of America, Canada, Argentina, and Brazil in the west, through Europe, Africa and the Middle East, to India, Russia, the Far East, and Australia and New Zealand. Not only that, but the collecting interests of the members embraces a wide spectrum of countries (with even the odd fictional place!), periods of history and a diverse range of themes and subjects. Thus amongst our members we have collectors of postal history, postage stamps, revenue stamps and local carriage labels and so-called Cinderella material, and the material we see in these pages spans a long period of history, from the 13th century to the modern era.

Given the broad subject matter in this book, I hope you enjoy it, and find much of interest to you, and perhaps some things that are new to you. It has been a fascinating and illuminating experience being a co-editor of the book, bringing together such a varied assemblage of pages from across the Society’s members.

By the very nature of the different sized album pages that we all use, the images included are often reduced to fit the page width of this book. Also, the granularity of the image provided varies considerably across the many different contributors.

Mark William Bailey is a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society London, where he is presently the Chairman of the Society’s IT Committee and a member of the Society’s Council. Mark also holds Committee positions at the Channel Islands Specialists’ Society and the Wokingham & District Philatelic Society. A stamp collector in his childhood, Mark has progressed from collecting stamps to being a real philatelist, studying the 19th century postal history of the Channel Islands, the Stamp Exhibition events held in Prague since 1938, the celebrations around the world of the Stamp Centenary in 1940, and the philately of the 1958 Brussels World's Fair.

Frank Leslie Walton (born 1955) is a British philatelist and the past president of the Royal Philatelic Society London. He was formerly editor of The London Philatelist. He is a specialist in the philately of Sierra Leone and is a signatory to the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists.