Some Members of our Royal Family 1 Prince Albert in 1851 2 Queen Victoria 3 Queen Alexandra 4 Edward VII 5 George V 6 Queen Mary 7 Prince of Wales
Another and perhaps better way of enriching one's collection is open to the philatelist who is able to obtain quantities of the medium class British and Colonial stamps. Briefly, the method is to insert an advertisement in a journal, which enjoys an overseas circulation, to the effect that for every hundred stamps sent of the reader's country, a hundred or more well-mixed British and Colonials will be despatched by the advertiser in return. The writer used to make it a practice of inserting some such notice as this two or three times every season, and the plan invariably brought in many valuable additions to his collection. Suitable mediums are the Overseas Daily Mail, the Boy's Own Paper (in the Boy's Own Column), The Philatelic Journal of America, and L'Écho de la Timbrologie.
Before closing this chapter, it may be well to give some hints on how to value one's collection. Possessed of a stamp catalogue, the philatelist can easily jot down the price of every stamp in his album, and so arrive at the total catalogue value. But this figure will be much above the price a dealer would give for the treasures. The catalogue value of a stamp is the selling price. What we want to know is the buying price—a very different matter.
To get an approximate idea of the value which a collection would realize, we should calculate as follows:
1. Nothing for all stamps catalogued at 1d. or 2d.
2. One penny each for stamps marked 3d. or 4d. each.
3. Three-halfpence to twopence each for stamps marked 5d. to 8d.
4. Quarter catalogue value for stamps quoted between 9d. and 4s.
5. Half catalogue value for other stamps, except for rarities, which often command full catalogue figures.
None but first-class specimens, and, in the case of used stamps, only those which have served postally, should be taken into consideration.