Prestige Booklets – from Stamp Booklets to Booklets with Stamps

Two mothers are waiting for their children at a school bus stop in New York City. One says to the other, “Is your son studying about the Lewis and Clark expedition?”

The other says, “Lewis and Clark? Who are they?”

“They’re the explorers who Thomas Jefferson commissioned to find a water route across North America. We’re now celebrating the 200th anniversary.”

“Oh Yes. I remember now. My son mentioned them the other day. Why do you ask about them?”

“Because I just bought a small book with 32 pages and color pictures that tells all about their expedition.”

“How much?”

“$1.55.”

“Wow! Where do I get it?”

“Any Post Office. Trouble is, the booklet comes with stamps. But once you use them on letters you have a nice little book.”

This fictional conversation sums up a major, current trend in the format of stamp booklets that are being issued around the world. The United States Post Office (as are other Postal Administrations) is printing historical, colorful booklets with stamps inside them. Frequently a premium over the postage value is charged although that wasn’t always the case. The Lewis and Clark booklet is called a Prestige Booklet.

The United States wasn’t the first to issue such booklets. Great Britain started printing Prestige Booklets in 1972. The first one was devoted to the life and products of Josiah Wedgwood. In 1969 Great Britain issued a booklet with recipes. It wasn’t called a Prestige Booklet but it sure looks like one. Hungary issued a booklet with recipes in 1988. Look for more and more of these booklets to be issued by Postal Administrations around the world because they are very popular.

Prestige Booklets started out as stamp booklets to satisfy the public interested in purchasing postage stamps with interesting stories contained on the interleaves. They have evolved into booklets that also contain stamps. They can be carried in a purse but not in a wallet. They are a little too bulky to be carried in one’s pocket but it can be done. The stories and pictures on the interleaves now overwhelm the postal function of the booklet. In fact, there are many interleaves which serve no stamp-related function. The result is that Postal Administrations are becoming publishers of little books, that by the way, contain a few stamps that are valid for postage.

Why did stamp booklets come into existence? In the late 1800’s people found that when they carried loose stamps in their pocket, purse, or wallet the stamps became crushed, creased, or stuck to some other item that was being carried. People clamored for something in which to carry the stamps so that they would not be damaged or become stuck to anything else.

When postage stamp booklets were introduced, in the early 1900’s, they consisted of light cardboard covers, between which panes of stamps and glassine interleaves were generally stitched or stapled together. The interleaves were included to prevent the panes from sticking to one another. The covers protected the stamps from being crushed, torn, or creased. The only writing contained in the booklets was on the front cover and it described the contents of the booklet along with the name of the issuing country. Printing soon began to appear on the interleaves and on other parts of the front and back covers. This printing included postal rates, commercial advertising and government messages promoting postal and national causes such as postal savings banks and tourism. The messages on the interleaves bore no relation to each other except in cases where an advertiser placed ads on more than one interleaf. The design of the stamps was usually independent of the words in the booklets.

Beginning in the 1950’s, the stamps and the booklet covers started to be related. France began its Red Cross series with the Red Cross on both the stamps and the covers. In 1978, the Falkland Islands issued stamps picturing mail ships. The design on some of those stamps was repeated on the front and back covers of the booklets issued along with the stamps. Many Swedish booklets honoring Nobel Prize winners showed a picture of the prize winners on both the booklet covers and the stamps. As a general rule it can be said that the booklet covers and the stamps were unrelated before 1950 and were connected after 1950.

With the introduction of Prestige Booklets much of what was familiar has changed. The text and the pictures in all the Prestige Booklets deal with a single theme. Most of the time, but not always, the stamps and the text complement each other. The first Prestige Booklet issued by Great Britain in 1972, was devoted to the “…story of Wedgwood.”

Even though the stamps and Wedgwood don’t appear related, there is a connection. The stamps feature a bust of Queen Elizabeth II. The bust was designed by Arnold Machin who worked for the Wedgwood firm in the second half of the last century. Machin’s design of the bust of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is used on many current British stamps which are called, naturally, Machins. The non-postage part of the booklet contains a dozen pages filled with text and colorful pictures which are all about Wedgwood. No premium was charged.

In 2004 the United States issued a Prestige Booklet commemorating the 200th anniversary of the start of the Lewis and Clark expedition. This 32 page booklet contains only two panels of stamps whose face value is $7.40. The booklet sold for $8.95, a premium of $1.55. It is beautifully executed and could serve very well as an educational document for those people who want a short but reasonably detailed text and picture presentation of the expedition.

The Postal Service justifies the premium for this booklet because of the extensive artwork, the detail of the research, and the cost of production. It is a philatelic item but clearly the Postal Service is now producing artfully designed small books as well as printing stamps.

People assume the history pages have value and are now trying to sell the booklet without any stamps. In October 2004, a text and picture only (no stamps) Lewis and Clark booklet was offered on eBay at $4.50 plus $0.95 for shipping. There were no buyers. That was too much money for a ‘stampless’ booklet for which the Post Office only charged $1.55.

In August 2004, Post Denmark issued a Prestige Booklet about Viking ships and the Viking Ship Museum. (The County Stamp Center in Annapolis, MD calls this booklet a Special Prestige Booklet. Jay Smith & Associates of Snow Camp, NC calls it a Prestige Booklet.) But is it a stamp booklet, or a booklet with stamps? It measures six by nine inches and is ¼ inch thick. It contains 40 pages of text and pictures, plus five small sheets of stamps. The sheets of stamps are printed with part of the scene shown on the page behind similar to the one showing a Viking ship under sail. The booklet cover unfolds horizontally to a length of about 42 inches. It has a slipcase and an ISBN (International Standard Book Number). Whoever heard of a stamp booklet issued for postal purposes being given an ISBN? Whoever heard of a stamp booklet with a slip case? Five of the pages are vellum with see-through windows highlighting what is on the next page. This booklet is too bulky to be carried on one’s person except in a tote bag. The booklet can fit on a bookshelf but not in a stamp album.

When the stamps are used, the 40 remaining pages might be sold in any bookstore. Not so with earlier booklets. When the stamps were removed the rest of the booklet was worth nothing to anyone except a philatelist, a few of whom collect just the covers. After the stamps were used a postal patron would usually throw away the rest of the booklet, not take it home to his child to help with homework assignments or use it in the kitchen to try out new recipes.

The Danish Prestige Booklet costs 99 kroner for stamps worth 58 kroner. That’s a premium of approximately $6.50 for the booklet without the stamps. Many would pay $6.50 for such a little book because of its easily understood historical information about the Vikings and its current information about the museum. It’s an inexpensive way to obtain a lovely book. Dealers are now selling it for $27.00 to $40.00.

That’s where the evolution of stamp booklets now resides. Postal Administrations are printing stamp booklets that contain desired information and colorful pictures in the expectation that the public will choose to buy more stamps when they are packaged attractively.

In past years the sale of the stamps and the convenience to the postal patron were the primary reasons for booklets to be produced. There was some commercial interest because the booklet was an excellent vehicle in which companies could tout their products to a large audience. The government was interested because, in addition to collecting advertising revenues, they could alert the public to information about the Postal Service and its procedures. The philatelist was interested because the booklets were mostly about stamps. The public was interested because they now had a convenient way to carry stamps on their person.

Today, Prestige Booklets are produced to appeal primarily to audiences who may be interested in the historical events, patriotic endeavors, famous people, national institutions, and commercial enterprises of the country of origin. The stamps are incidental. The booklets are too big to be carried conveniently in one’s pocket, purse, or wallet.

Many new Prestige Booklets are sold at premium prices which generally are a hefty percentage of the value of the stamps. Little regard is given to the postal patron or the stamp collector. Some booklets are so large that it is impossible to use them as carrying cases designed to protect the stamp. The book buying public is the target audience, not the postage stamp customer.

The United States and Canada have been publishing books with stamps for many years. In the United States these have been Commemorative Yearbooks. They are 8 ½ by 11 inches, many have hard covers, and contain one each of the stamps issued during a given year. The difference between these books and stamp booklets is that they could not be mistaken for stamp booklets.

The Danish Viking booklet seems to fall between a book and a stamp booklet. It resembles a Prestige Booklet. It is devoted to a single issue. The stamps are in booklet pane format and the booklet that contains the stamps is soft cover. But it is too big, too many pages, and too different from earlier stamp booklets.

Postal Administrations around the world have taken the first steps to printing and selling books. Now that these books with stamps have an ISBN one can expect that they will be sold in bookstores as well as post offices. That’s not a bad happening if it helps keep the postal rates down.

Great Britain’s first Prestige Booklet. No premium over the face value of the stamps was charged. (Scott BK144, BC30)

Hungarian booklet page with Recipe for Wild Duck with Orange. The stamps in this booklet are Scott 3199 and 3200 (10 of each stamp)

1954 Red Cross booklet and Stamps issued in France (Scott B291a)

Two of the many Machins (Scott MH36d)

A beautiful scene is artfully portrayed on the back cover of the Lewis and Clark Prestige Booklet. A premium of $1.55 was charged (Scott BK297, BC200)

One page and a sheet of stamps from the 2004 Danish, Viking Ship Museum Prestige Booklet showing a Viking ship at sea. At the top a souvenir sheet of stamps is shown. This souvenir sheet is bound into the booklet directly in front of the seascape. The sky and the sail of the Viking ship on the sheet of stamps are what you would see if the sheet was removed. The booklet has a slip case and an ISBN. A premium of about $6.50 was charged.

First published in “The American Philatelist”, February 2007.