Booklets and Booklet Panes

Differing sub specialties of philately are collected more avidly depending on the country. Americans have plate blocks and First Day Covers but booklet and booklet pane philately has never been very popular among US area collectors. The United States issued its first booklet stamps in the 1890s but the real engines behind booklet pane collecting are the Germans. The reason is twofold. First German Area philatelists tend to collect with a far finer tooth comb than anybody else, with the Austrians even measuring the paper thickness on the first issues of that country. The Germans count perfs and printing types and their collecting embodies a level of specialization that Americans find obsessive. But secondly, German booklet collecting is more interesting than American and British. The German post office issued both booklets and full booklet sheets, that is specially designed sheets that were cut up into booklets. This allows collectors to collect the full sheets but also to collect combinations of setenants and tete beches that can only be created when such sheets are issued to collectors uncut. Because of this Germqn booklets, panes and various stamp combinations (which exist under the German term Zussamendrucken) have always been an important part of German Area Philately, playing a far larger role for collectors of that area than for any other.