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Reference & Collections

A reference collection is a collection of objects maintained for the purpose of study and authentication. more...

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Reference collections are generally large undertakings maintained by institutions; instead of having a single representative of each object, they will typically have multiples, so as to illustrate variations. For human-created objects such as postage stamps or coins, a good reference collection will also include an assortment of (carefully labelled) fakes and forgeries.

Since the purpose is study rather than personal gratification or display, a reference collection values damaged objects as much as the pristine; in fact, organizations maintaining reference collections will encourage members to donate their damaged or poor-condition items to the collection.

In biology, reference collections are an important sort of information about variations of populations within a species. They are also the repository of holotypes used as the official definition of a species.

In philately, reference collections are critical to expertization, since the characteristics differentiating authentic stamps from reprints, fakes, and forgeries are often too subtle to be described verbally.

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