Is It Time to Take Your Specialty Further?

An Article by David McNamee

There comes a point in many collectors' lives when they move from a general collection to some specific collecting interest. We specialize in some smaller geographical area, some particular issue, or some particular type of philately. I have a special interest in Tasmania, another collector concentrates on South American revenues, and still another collects British perfins.

Specialists often need to go beyond the standard catalog, and this is when access to a good philatelic library is so important. There are usually four main sources for more information about your chosen specialty:

  1. The definitive work or "bible" for that specialty. Nearly any specialty you can dream up has been written about. The Western Philatelic Library has over 6000 books, including every major work in every specialty (and if we don't have it, ask and we will likely acquire it).
  2. A journal devoted to that specialty. The WPL has 397 different journals hardbound in the stacks and hundreds more in filing cabinets waiting to be bound. If you collect Japan, for instance, there are at least four major journals published in Japan, Germany, Great Britain, and the USA in Japanese, German and English full of fantastic information about Japanese philately. Our journals span over 120 years of publication, from the 1880s to the present. Most are in English, but we also have major journals in over a dozen languages.
  3. Special publications and pamphlets. These booklets often contain checklists and detailed studies about some special area. The WPL has hundreds of self-published manuscripts and thousands of pamphlets on special topics. If your interest is in the postal stationery of the Danish West Indies, the WPL has several pamphlets and booklets describing your specialty.  The WPL has a growing number of photocopies of award-winning exhibits, some in color.  Our extensive auction catalog file also gives philatelists an opportunity to study color photographs of great rarities.
  4. Tear sheet files. Clippings of articles made from spare copies of general philatelic magazines such as the American Philatelist or the S.P.A. Journal provide information about special collecting interests. These tear sheets are for sale from the WPL at an average of fifteen cents a page. Every specialist seems to develop a clippings file, and purchasing tear sheets streamlines your research effort and helps support the WPL at the same time. We have thousands of different articles on virtually every topic imaginable.  See our web page for Tear Sheet Listings.

In addition, there are books about the specific era or geography to provide context for understanding how postal systems or routes developed. The WPL is not as strong as a university library in this area; nevertheless, we have a number of books in this category such as Place Names of Nevada or The Pan Am Clipper. We have an extensive collection of postal regulations and manuals from the early 1900s to the present for many countries. Do you need to know the postal rates in Kenya for 1935? The WPL can provide that.

So is it time to take your special interest to a new level?  If so, the Western Philatelic Library is well equipped to help.

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