Initial Steps - Taking an Inventory

OK, I've taken the plunge and bought two large lots of Somerset Postal History at an auction.

I bid sight unseen so was pleasantly suprised when a large cardboard box arrived with five binders of material; one for Bath and four for the rest of Somerset.  As per the description, most of the material is post 1840, with a lot of slogan and commercial cancellations from the larger towns.

So what do I do first ?  After a quick scan through I decided that I'd start with an inventory.  This appeals to the "stamp collector" side of my nature.

I've ended up building a spreadsheet of all the places in Somerset that I can find that might have had a postmark, based on the material I've just acquired, on the British County Catalogue (BCC), and on the "Postal Addresses, March 1972" publication from The Post Office.  This involved going through the latter page by page pulling out all the places in Somerset and Bristol (then weeding out the places under Bristol that were north of the Avon.

Then I've gone through the material I've got and indicate which places I've got postmarks from on cover or on piece.  I've ended up with over 500 different places in Somerset that might have had postmarks, with examples on cover from just over 25% of them.  Obviously that's not the end of the story because (nearly) everywhere will have had multiple different postmarks, but it's a start.