- Reference collection
A reference collection is a collection of objects maintained for the purpose of study and authentication. 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 and, sometimes, provide samples for comparisons. For human-created objects such as
postage stamp s orcoin s, 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, such as herbaria are an important sort of information about variations of populations within a species. They are also the repository ofholotype s used as the official definition of species.In
philately , reference collections are critical toexpertization , since the characteristics differentiating authentic stamps from reprints, fakes, and forgeries are often too subtle to be described verbally.
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