A Guide to Reviews

On this website you will find Xanthe's reviews of new stamp issues from aroud the world.

Xanthe assesses stamps in six categories, which are:

Design Quality
Theme/Subject Choice
Historical and Cultural Relevance
Innovation and Creativity
Collectability
Personal Appeal

This is to keep Xanthe's reviews focused, structured and fair-minded. She will express her opinions (and often does) but her approach - inspired by that taken in the now defunct Stamp Magazine -  goes beyond simple opinion and encourages a deeper understanding of each issue. This structured approach also ensures that both objective and subjective perspectives are included and promotes careful visual analysis while also encouraging Xanthe to undertake her own research and develop an appreciation of the stories behind each stamp.

It also means stamps she personally likes may not actually score highly if she feels they do not have a strong historical or cultural relevance, for example. 

Xanthe awards marks out of ten in each category, giving an overall mark out of sixty. These total scores can be interpreted as follows:

55+ - a truly exceptional issue
50-54 – an outstanding issue
40-49 – a very good issue
30-39 – a good effort, but with room for improvement
20-29 – an average effort, perhaps good in some respects but not so strong in others
10-19 – quite a poor issue, but not completely uninteresting
5-9 – an extremely poor issue
0-4 – what was the point?