To preserve the tidy appearance of a collection in a printed album one must sacrifice those portions of the margins adjoining stamps from the outer edges of the printed sheets. In most cases it serves no purpose to retain them, and they interfere with the symmetry of the pages. The collector, too, must use his judgment as to the desirability of trimming away unnecessary ragged protrusions of the perforation.
For all cleaning purposes benzine is an excellent medium, as its rapid evaporation is a convenience, and it does not injure the stamp. Most used stamps may be soaked in benzine and be much improved by the bath; but where the colours of the stamp are such that immersion in liquid is unsafe, treatment may be applied to the edges or to the back as required by means of the camel's-hair brush.
The whole purpose of this care with individual stamps is to preserve the specimens and to impart a composite beauty of condition to the whole, without which no collection can be pleasing to its owner or to any one else. Every unused stamp should be spotless so far as extraneous blemishes are concerned; the colour should be fresh as when it came from the printers' workshops; the perforations of each stamp should be complete, and should have been neatly severed, and the gum on the back, unless it is so thick and crackly that it is a danger to the stamps, should be preserved intact.
A used stamp should be selected for its lightness of postmark, though there are often times when a more heavily postmarked copy showing the date of use will be valuable evidence in the pursuit of historical researches. The colour of the used stamp should not be less good than that of an unused one, and the perforations should be all there.
In the case of imperforate stamps it is desirable always to have as large margins round the printed impression as possible; while in all perforated stamps one should endeavour to secure well-centred copies--that is to say, copies in which the printed impression falls evenly between the perforations on all four sides.
These are the chief _desiderata_ for the general collector. They read rather portentously; but the cult of condition comes by practice to all who have the true love of stamps, for if stamps are worth collecting at all they are worthy of our best endeavours to keep them in the pink of condition. "It is part of the decency of scholars," says Richard de Bury, "that whenever they return from meals to their study, washing should invariably precede reading, and that no grease-stained finger should unfasten the clasps or turn the leaves of a book"; it should be no less a part of the decency of the philatelist, and in the case of his treasures the true lover of stamps will not neglect the merest trifles which will perpetuate the perfect preservation of his specimens.