Using our Windsor Supplements

There are a multitude of ways to collect stamps and house them, some easier than others, and the beauty of the hobby is that you can be as involved and detailed as you like to be, whatever the style of collecting you want to follow there is a medium for you.

One of the most popular mediums for collecting is on pre-printed leaves, where the user can follow along with a one of our proprietary philatelic catalogues. Below we look at our Windsor range of pre-printed Great Britain leaves.

Windsor Range – Vol.1.

Our Windsor leaves are our best selling printed pages, they allow collectors to fill the gaps in an easy and visual manner. This fine quality range features a cream coloured and acid-free sets of pages, and our most detailed offering for the Great Britain Collector.

The pre-printed leaves provide allocated spaces for every stamp, with the SG number showing for added reassurance when placing your stamp, these leaves are available mounted or un-mounted giving you the options to use stamp hinges if you so wish. While on the facing page there is illustrated listings giving details and SG Numbers showing you how the page will look when completed.

These supplements follow our GB Concise catalogue with the two ranges going hand-in-hand perfectly.

The leaves can be housed in the Sandringham, Kensington and Regents binders, personally I’d recommend the Regent binder if you are looking for a truly traditional philatelic experience, and the Kensington binder offers you a more modern and luxury approach to collecting.

Why buy?

This binder and leaves combination provides the opportunity for a collector to have clear guidance and assistance when compiling their collection. Knowing what stamps you need, what it looks like when completed and it’s catalogue number.
For those who don’t wish to mount the stamps themselves, the pages can be purchased with mounts, meaning you only have to put your stamp in place rather than attach hinges and stick on.
It removes the need to ‘write up’ the collection as everything is clearly labelled already, giving you more time to focus on the stamps than presentation.
Once you start filling the gaps, your ‘wants list’ becomes very apparent and will spur you on to fill those gaps!

Here at Stanley Gibbons, we are able to offer you not only the binder, pages and the corresponding catalogue but also the stamps to match and most important of all, the guidance on how to pick those stamps.

Quality is everything when it comes to stamps and we only stock the best available.

Our comprehensive selection of classic stamps will make a good start on filling those all-important gaps. We also have a dedicated service where we will try and source the stamps you are currently missing.

The results

A finished page looks excellent and shows you the visual progress that was made with printing over the centuries which started in 1840 with the famous penny black.

For this article, we have focused on the Volume 1 of the Windsor Supplement, but this method of collecting applies to all of our pre-printed supplements across Great Britain and the Commonwealth.

Kick start your GB Collection

If following the pre-printed leaves method of collecting is for you, then these three stamps could be the way for you to kick start your collecting journey.

The Penny Black

The Penny Black is the world’s first postage stamp, an icon that changed how we communicate. This particular stamp is a 1840 1d Black Pl.6. Very fine used good to large four margin example lettered HL.

The Two Penny Blue

The Two Penny Blue was valid for postage on May 6th, the same day as the Penny Black in the exact same design. The stamp was rarely used, however, as it was produced exclusively to cover postage for packages weighed over half an ounce. This particular stamp is a 1840 2d Pale blue Pl.1. Very fine used four margin example lettered TK, neatly cancelled by a crisp red MC.

The Penny red

The Penny Black’s successor, the Penny Red addressed flaws in the stamp’s anti-forgery and reuse prevention measures. The red-brown cancellation marks used on Penny Blacks were easy to wash off and were therefore often unlawfully reused. This particular stamp is a 1841 1d Red brown Pl.23. Very fine used large four margin example lettered NJ