The Cost Of A Couple Of Staples

Have you ever wandered where the idea for the Prestige Booklet came from? The date was December 1969 and Harrisons printed and assembled a new concept of a stamp booklet never seen  before.


The booklet was entitled Stamps For Cooks. The make up: was in the form of four panes with inter leaves congaing recipes for cooks.

1. Cream of Potato Soup

1. Creamy Carrot Soup

1. Portuguese Plaice

1. Stuffed Cucumber

1. Pork with Fried Peaches

1. Braised Shoulder of Lamb

1. Cheese Platter Salad

1. Ham Club Sandwich

1. Baked Stuffed Haddock

1. Apple and Walnut Salad

1. Peaches Mistral

1. Cream Meringues

The Initial booklets were bound with staples, but this proved to be too slow, and the large majority were stitched. An inch wide strip of black passe-partout was wrapped around the spine in order to extend the booklet's usefulness as a recipe book. 

If you look closely you can just about make out the staples to the left of the picture.

1. Now looking at catalogue and dealers prices I was amazed to see what the difference to the price that these couple of staples made.

Although the contents are the same the stapled versions are catalogued at £400.00 selling for approx £295.00. The un stapled versions are catalogued at 13.00 selling for approx £5.00.

If you are interested in stamp Machin booklets in general have found this brilliant website that describes the history of these booklets and MUCH MUCH MORE. I recommend that you pay it a visit. I have just been reading some of our past posts and realized that I had actually covered this booklet some years ago

Oh by the way Many Thanks Larry for keeping these pages alive whist I have been absent from my post.