Michel Catalogues for Non-European Areas

If you mostly use a catalog for information, identification and organizing and don’t need the pricing info, one option is to just use Colnect. You can get ballpark values from Stampworld.

Catalogs have become so very expensive. If you’d rather spend the money on actual stamps these are an option.

That said, khj is right in my opinion. Even many auctions use the catalogs he mentions for those specific areas. 

My personal favorite is Michel - overall. 

I use my Michel Asien 1994 (two-volumes edition) almost as much as my 2018 or 2022 Scott catalogs.  Reason, mostly, is the two Michel volumes are much more compact and easier to navigate on a busy, crowded stamp desk.  Unless I need current catalog prices--which is not very often at all--I rarely reach for the Scott catalogs,unless it's for post-1993 stamps, which obviously my older Michel lack.  The stamps pictured are NOT in color (only black and white), but print quantities ("Auflage") when available are included, as well as a few more details than Scott gives sometimes, such as prices for FDC (first day covers), and often the printing company.  Prices (notoriously high in Michel) are listed in the old pre-2001 D-Mark as well (DM 1,94 = one Euro).  In some Michel listings there often are THREE or even FOUR columns for catalog value; MINT UNHINGED (**) UNUSED HINGED (*) USED (circle with a dot inside) and a circle filled with diagonal back-slash type marks indicating CTO or favor cancels.  Helpful for estimating value of cancelled-to-order stamps or favor-canceled items, such as Third Reich and East Germany, among others.



Also, I like the way Michel gives the Souvenir Sheets (Sheetlets, Commemorative Blocks) their own separate catalog number, for example Block 1, Block 2, Block 3 totally regardless of the stamps contained within them. Helpful for countries like South Korea that have over 400 Blocks issued up to 1994 (see below).But the Block numbers ARE listed immediately following the stamps they contain, and I find it very helpful that the (metric) size for the blocks are mentioned...useful for saving a space on your album page if you have no idea of the block's size!

Also helpful at the beginning of each country is a numerical listing of all "Blocks" indicating where they are listed, after the corresponding Michel stamp number. In other words, Michel makes a bit more sense than Scotts. No more looking in the "back section of the book" for airmails and charity stamps (semi-postals) although Portomarken (postage dues) and the like ARE listed "back there".

Since Michel catalogs can be pricey new, I like to pick them up at German stamp fairs/bourses...or sometimes from collectors online looking to upgrade their older catalogs. The US$20 I paid for my two Michel Asia 1994 catalogs about ten years ago was well worth it! For collectors of Russia, however, one will NOT find it in Asia catalogs. Russia is listed in OLDER Michel catalogs in Europa/Ost issues. The latest Michel Russia/USSR 2023/2024 catalog was just released this month for EUR 67,29 and has over 7,900 color pictures of that prolific stamp entity, michel.de noted.  Also recently many Michel catalogs are now printed in English, for those who sprechen kein Deutsch.  

as khj said all of the big 4 catalogues have their strengths and weaknesses, and it is interesting when you deal with parts of the world that are "outside" the area of specialization for any of them that you can make comparisons.

At Colnect, I *generally* consider Scott the catalogue of record for Latin America for those nations that do not have their own national catalogues (though most do). For Eastern Europe and the Middle East Michel is stronger than Scott, would also say the same for the Far East as well. Independent Africa really for most part falls with whoever the colonial rulers were so Yvert for Francophone, Gibbons for Anglophone, and then Michel for "others".

Gibbons regional catalogues are also very very good for these areas, but finding them can be difficult as many of the non-European/non-Commonwealth ones have not had new editions since the late first decade of the 2000s. But if you can track them down they can be goldmines, and do very good jobs with perforation and shade differences. But do not depend on Gibbons Stamps of the World. I won't go any further as my mother said if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything. 

Yvert is good in that it also covers things like telegraph stamps and postal-fiscal items that Scott and Michel leave out - especially good for Latin America in that regard. Price wise it's online edition is also a bargain - full access to the complete range of Yvert general catalouges (14 volumes I think in total) for approximately US$150 or so per year, and they, like Scott, are like large PDF files.

In the end the goal of Colnect is to provide a "synthesis" of the data in all of the big 4 and the national specialized catalogues to create an organic single whole in one place, which means bringing together varieties that might be listed in only one or two of the big 4 but not all (plus all the goodies in the national specialized catalogues that all of the Big 4 ignore).