Talk:Columbian Issue

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An entry from Columbian Issue appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on December 19, 2006.

This is a fine article, just needs a bit of tweaking. First, it needs a bigger-format picture at the top, otherwise somebody clicking on it thinks, "oh, just boring text", not realizing there are plenty of pics. commons:Category:Stamps of the United States has several larger images, though none are ideal. Second, I think the subsectioning for values breaks things up too much - as weird as it sounds, I think plain paragraphs with bolded denominations, or even an enumerated list, will look better. It would also let us keep TOC for main sections, but not take up nearly an entire screen with denominations (it's not like anyone will ever click straight to a particular one). I don't have my Brookman handy, it would be good to add a comment as to why such a large set was decided upon. Stan 14:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The Commons images for the Columbians are painfully lacking (one decent 2c and 10c picture, a 2c mislabelled as 3c, and the worst-condition 1c and 10c I've seen in some time). What I'd really like to see is the image of one of the better Columbian covers (the huge package piece with four $5 and a rainbow of lower demons would be lovely), but I'm uncertain if the free use afforded us for US postage applies to covers from established collections... As an unrelated note, anyone have a good closeup of the broken hat? My scanner is like the 2c Columbian in a way: old, and very useful in its time, but really not worth much anymore. Serpent's Choice 05:57, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

My general approach to the "lead" image is that it should be somehow "most representative" of the article's subject and secondarily "most attractive", which in this case suggests a XF unused 2c as the ideal. Cover images are highly desirable supplements, to give flavor of how the stamps were used. As mundane objects, I think scans of covers can only get copyright from either cachet or stamps, so any Columbian cover is going to be PD. It would be a courtesy to tell people when you're collecting images, so they're not surprised to see their item on the front page of WP some day. :-) Stan 15:12, 17 December 2006 (UTC)