The Admiral Stamps of Canada

Collecting and Displaying Admiral Stamps


Introduction

Most people first encounter Admiral stamps as part of a more general collection at a stage in their hobby when they may be using a commercially produced album that allows a representative sampling of the issue's denominations, formats, colour changes and war tax varieties. Depending on the collector's interests, this of course may well suffice. One of the fascinating aspects of philately, however, is that there is a seemingly endless number of ways to collect and present stamps and varying depths of study into any given area. The group of stamps that make up the Admiral issue offers the opportunity to satisfy the collecting interests of both novices and specialists alike.

Another facet of philately is that it may be a solitary excerise, done purely for one's own enjoyment, or it may be carried out with the aim of showing others what you have collected and learned about a particular topic. In either case, the reward will come from an eventual presentation that is complete, informative and pleasing to the eye. The following information is offered as suggestions to stimulate thinking about the different ways in which the Admiral stamps may be collected and pesented.

The Gathering of Material

Needless to say, before you can study or present anything, you have to collect the items in question. Fortunately, since billions of Admiral stamps were produced during their period of issue, used copies of most variations are readily available at very low prices. High quality mint copies are of course more expensive. To get a good idea of what to look for, and to have a feel for the relative values of each stamp and variety, you will need use a specialized catalogue that lists varieties of each stamp. The Admiral stamps are usually categorized first by format (that is, sheet, booklet, coil, and imperforate), then by denomination within each format category (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 20, 50 cents, 1 dollar and the war tax issues). Each denomination is further characterized by the following possibilities:

Presentation

As with gourmet cooking, presentation is as important as content. Remembering that, at the end of the day, the only person you have to please is yourself, you are of course at liberty to experiment to your heart's content with various page layouts, caption text, explanatory information, and so on. There is no right or wrong way to present your collection, but there some rules of thumb that experienced philatelists have found to be useful, and which would apply whether you choose to use a computer, word processor, typewriter, or ballpoint pen to aid your presentation.

First, you will find that you will have to design your own pages to portray collected and studied material. Far from seeing this as a chore or a necessary evil, however, it should be viewed as perhaps the most important, rewarding and pleasant activity associated with the hobby. Anyone can fill spaces in a pre-prepared album, but a true philatelist will want to present the results of his or her study and efforts in unique and imaginative ways that reflect the ingenuity and creativity of the individual collector.

Some of the practical considerations when deciding the optimum arrangement for page layout include the following:

With the advent of personal computers, including ancillary hardware such as scanners and printers and suitable image handling software, it is now possible to prepare very professional looking pages that include colour blow ups depict minute details that normally must be seen with the aid of a magnifying glass. Click on Album Pages to see sample pages from an Admiral collection.

Another fascinating area of study is postal history, which entails collecting and examining covers, cancels and postal regulations and practices. In other words, collecting and showing how the stamps were actually used. Click on Postal History to see how one individual has gone about this.


Updated: 14 Oct 97