How to organize pre-cancels and perfins?

I don't really collect either, but I do collect postmarks. Basically, if I have one copy of a stamp from a country I actively collect, and it has a postmark I like, the stamp - the "main collection" - wins. If it's not a country that I collect heavily, the postmark wins. But that's me; and I'm unique, just like everyone else.

For the United States and Canada, I divide postmarks up by state/province and then sort them alphabetically within each state/province. At least for me, that has turned out to be the easiest way to find things. That should work OK for precancels, too, or at least the kind we have in the States. For a precancel-hungry place like Belgium, I would just do it by city and then probably by year. Start out with stock pages or Vario pages (slightly more expensive, but the transparent pockets are worth it) and see what works. The beauty of those pages is that if a system you choose isn't working for you, or if you decide you want the stamps in your main collection, you don't have to dehinge everything, you can just rearrange the stamps or the cut corners or what-have-you.

Perfins you might want to do by country and then alphabetically by abbreviation/acronym within each country; I think any other subdivisions would probably be irrelevant. That way they'll at least be in some kind of order for when you get a chance to research the mysterious ones (which, to me, is all of them!).

I'd definitely get separate books for the specialty items. Or you could have a separate section in the back for precancels and perfins. Stamps that get precanceled or perfined a lot are usually the most common stamps, and having, say, two pages of precancels on the 2¢ Jefferson coil from the 1950s and 1960s right in the middle of a general U.S. collection, I don't think that would look real great. But if you want to try it, go for it. (That stamp used to show up all the time on mailings from charities and interest groups, and it was in use for years after the rest of that 1953-1961 definitive series had pretty much been retired.)

Does this help? I hope so, anyway.

I only collect Irish perfins and I organize them first alphabetically by the perfin letters with symbols sorted out and placed at the back. Then I sort same perfin types in the order the stamps were issued. I use clear Vario sheets so I can view both sides with black interleaves

For US Bureau precancels, I use Steiner pages in a separate album. For other types (e.g. town and type, Washington/Franklin, Washington bicentennial, etc.) I use pages freely downloadable from the Precancel Society - www.precancels.com/free-albums/

For Canada precancels, I make my own pages and tuck them after my BOB pages.

Beware, precancels can be a really, really deep rabbit hole to climb down!

For precancels (U.S.) i use Vario pages and a 3-ring binder alphabetically by State and for each State page(s) alphabetically by city and then, within each city, oldest stamps to newest but keeping the same types together.

For perfins I have a U.S. Binder and a Foreign Binder. using Vario pages again, the U.S. perfins are kept alphabetically by perfin. The foreign are kept alphabetically by country and then on each country page alphabetically by perfin.

Hi lizandbob

For the perfins you could look at the Perfins Club:  www.perfins.org/

It may give ideas on the others.

Jerry B