Oh, the dreaded "should" rears its head.

You know it's all about what you want, not should. Should only comes into play when you're following some one else's rules for whatever reason: exhibition, sale, storage. If it's strictly for you, do what you want.

For myself, selvage is more important than order, consistency, and appearance. Selvage helps to ID stamps (think of a 2c Washington from the WF series; those with a plate number are immediately and confidently identified by the plate number as a particular stamp because we kept lists of PNs and the stamps associated with those plates) and helps to place it on the sheet (which pane in which position, although more modern stamps often have faulty information, courtesy of some ridiculous decisions by USPS management [thanks, Mr Failor, looking forward to the magic you work at the UN]).

by keeping selvage, you make the stamp more attractive to a small universe of collectors (those who value selvage, PNs, etc), so, I suppose, there is a universal constant that more is better if for no other reason than one can always remove the selvage later, but one can't return it to the stamp once removed.

anyway, i'm one of the minority who prefers selvage to its absence, and will always pick the one with selvage over one without, all other things being equal. but note the key word in this paragraph is MINORITY. Most don't care, and probably more prefer its absence than its presence.

either way, do what you want.

Sal Vatch

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With Canadian stamps a selvedge often tells the printer and paper type which really helps when you are trying to identify this type of stamp. There are some Christmas booklet stamps that are identical to the sheet stamps and the only way to identify them is by the narrow selvedge attached to the stamp. These Christmas sheet issues have a wider selvedge than the booklet issues.

Myself I prefer to have the selvedge attached or a corner stamp with two selvedges and the margin inscriptions is even is even better.

This is just a personal preference.

I agree with Sal - One should collect what they want, in the format that pleases themselves not what others tell them they 'should' collect.

Liz

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Welll! I will do what I want (smiling). I am all for preserving plate numbers if they are attached to the stamp or block. Ditto with the Mr. Zip, plate position information, etc. However with today's printing techniques just how much information do you acquire with plate numbers consisting of all 1's. It always seemed to me that the plate number collecting was really about potential rarity.

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