angore
Member 
Posts: 5,684 
What I collect: WW, focus on British Empire
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Post by angore on Apr 13, 2021 12:05:53 GMT
The reason behind my question above was that I scan all my album pages and was looking for defined abbreviation for countries to use in file names.
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brightonpete
Departed
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On a hike at Goodrich-Loomis
Posts: 5,110
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Post by brightonpete on Apr 13, 2021 12:45:59 GMT
Some country names are long - Have you thought of the Olympic Country codes. They are 3 letter but quite a few are there. For countries/entities not there, make up your own...
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djcmh
Member
Posts: 794
What I collect: Worldwide
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Post by djcmh on Apr 13, 2021 14:30:06 GMT
I don't believe we have a master list of country codes, something to add to the to do list. In general, Colnect uses the 2 letter internet country codes for current postal administrations. Dead countries we usually create a code based off either colonial owner, or current country with a following suffix modifier.
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angore
Member
Posts: 5,684
What I collect: WW, focus on British Empire
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Post by angore on Apr 14, 2021 10:21:34 GMT
The country code has been catalog specific at times. For example, for British Guiana SG and Michel codes use GY prefix while the Stamp Number (Scott) uses GB-GY for pre-Independence issues. This is likely due to Scott restarting numbering to 1 for Guyana issues. SG just continues the numbering. No sure on Scott logic since they continue numbers too after independence.
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djcmh
Member
Posts: 794
What I collect: Worldwide
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Post by djcmh on Apr 14, 2021 16:00:09 GMT
The country code has been catalog specific at times. For example, for British Guiana SGL and Michel codes use GY prefix while the Stamp Number (Scott) uses GB-GY for pre-Independence issues. This is likely due to Scott restarting numbering to 1 for Guyana issues. SG just continues the numbering. No sure on Scott logic since they continue numbers too after independence. yes, in general Colnect tries to have the country codes be reflective of how the stamps are listed in each catalog, which creates situations as you show with British Guiana. This is just one of the many quirks and challenges of trying to collate the Philatelic Babel created by different national catalogues into a somewhat coherent whole. |
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chrischross
Member
Inactive
Posts: 206
What I collect: France, French Africa, FSAT, French Polynesia
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Post by chrischross on Apr 14, 2021 20:29:11 GMT
Some country names are long - Have you thought of the Olympic Country codes. They are 3 letter but quite a few are there. For countries/entities not there, make up your own... Interesting, and seems to cover some of those dead countries out there or situations such as Saar, or "SAA". Since the Olympics has such a tremendous influence on stamp issuance, that seems like a really good option. I say this as the person who doesn't have to do the data conversion work though :-) |
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angore
Member
Posts: 5,684
What I collect: WW, focus on British Empire
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Post by angore on Apr 15, 2021 10:36:27 GMT
I starting using the Colnect codes since it covered dead countries and did not want to spend time coming up with my own system. Since I collect mostly using Scott, Colnect has dealt with Scott's groupings. My collection scans are saved by country (per Scott/Steiner) country with file name of country and page number, Scott's country groupings are flawed but best to keep things consistent. The code speeds up time renaming scans.
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brightonpete
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On a hike at Goodrich-Loomis
Posts: 5,110
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Post by brightonpete on Apr 23, 2021 23:32:59 GMT
So I just started again. I am so averse to clicking! Man, there's a LOT of clicking to enter your data! It'll take me a long time to get things entered! I can only point and click for so long!
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djcmh
Member
Posts: 794
What I collect: Worldwide
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Post by djcmh on Apr 24, 2021 5:09:42 GMT
So I just started again. I am so averse to clicking! Man, there's a LOT of clicking to enter your data! It'll take me a long time to get things entered! I can only point and click for so long! Yes, basically to enter data you have to click on all of the stamps you wish to add to your collection. One tip - if you have all stamps in one set, or for an entire year, you can click on "Quick Mark" at top right (see image)  then scroll down to "add all items" And all items that are visible on that page will be added to your collection So if you have all of New Zealand's stamps from 1974, set the Year filter to 1974 so that only stamps issued in 1974 appear, then Quick Mark, Add to Collection, and all the items will be added to your collection It also means if you have most of a year, of a set, it is probably faster to use quick mark to mark all the items as in your collection, then click to remove those items that are not in your collection. Adding 10 and removing 2 items is quicker than adding 8 items one by one. Hope that explanation was clear Gene |
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philatelia
Member
Captain Jack - my best kiloware find ever!
Posts: 3,654
What I collect: Ireland, Japan, Scandy, USA, Venezuela, Vatican, Bermuda, Austria
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Post by philatelia on Apr 24, 2021 13:09:58 GMT
I listen to an audiobook while I click to add the data on Colnect or while listening to a TV show with hubby. Once you get the hang of it, it goes really quickly. Also - if you are doing duplicates, chances are for NZ that you only have the low values in the sets. So display thumbnail pics only so that you don’t have to keep scrolling past all of the full info for all of the other values in the sets. Setting to just 10 or 20 items per page also makes it easier to keep track of where you are. Tapping on the pic brings up the window for any issue.
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darkormex
Member
Swinging through Switzerland and getting tied up in Thailand
Posts: 2,196
What I collect: The World...just printing and mounting as I go...call me crazy!
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Post by darkormex on Apr 24, 2021 13:24:47 GMT
djcmh , whenever I get a postcrossing postcard in the mail I use Colnect in order to look up the stamps because, most of the time, they are newer stamps not listed in my 2016 Scott Catalogues. I was wondering if you have any recommendations on how to search for stamps on the site? As an example the group of stamps included on my most recent received postcard was tricky to find, even though in two cases the year of issue is included on the stamp.  For example, the stamp on the right, I started with the country, of course, and then narrowed it down by face value, 1.20å…ƒ. This narrowed my search to 1173 results. After that I plugged in the year, 2017, and was still left with 77 results. After this I typically try to narrow it down further by searching themes but sometimes it seems like what would be obvious themes to me are not the way Colnect has a stamp categorized. So, for example, I searched "public transport" with no results for this stamp, and then "aircraft" with no results for this stamp, and then finally, "railways" and this stamp showed up in the search results. Can stamps not be present in multiple categories? How is a theme determined by Colnect? Also, I can tell you that the middle stamp, the 80å…ƒ, was even harder to find and I had to sift through pages of stamps in the year of issue, 2004, for this stamp. It has no obvious theme. Do you have any recommendations in searching for stamps with no obvious theme or when that theme is difficult to determine when you can't read the language present?
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brightonpete
Departed
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On a hike at Goodrich-Loomis
Posts: 5,110
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Post by brightonpete on Apr 24, 2021 13:40:08 GMT
I was looking for "Quick Mark", but discovered it is only available for premium members. I had searched for pricing of this, but none can be found. You have to subscribe for free then get a surprise!
I'll pass on that for now...
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djcmh
Member
Posts: 794
What I collect: Worldwide
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Post by djcmh on Apr 24, 2021 15:41:28 GMT
I was looking for "Quick Mark", but discovered it is only available for premium members. I had searched for pricing of this, but none can be found. You have to subscribe for free then get a surprise!
I'll pass on that for now... has all the information To summarize...premium is US$11.80/month renew month per month or US$8.33/month if you take annual subscription (so total would be $99.96/year) |
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djcmh
Member
Posts: 794
What I collect: Worldwide
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Post by djcmh on Apr 24, 2021 16:03:12 GMT
djcmh , whenever I get a postcrossing postcard in the mail I use Colnect in order to look up the stamps because, most of the time, they are newer stamps not listed in my 2016 Scott Catalogues. I was wondering if you have any recommendations on how to search for stamps on the site? As an example the group of stamps included on my most recent received postcard was tricky to find, even though in two cases the year of issue is included on the stamp. For example, the stamp on the right, I started with the country, of course, and then narrowed it down by face value, 1.20å…ƒ. This narrowed my search to 1173 results. After that I plugged in the year, 2017, and was still left with 77 results. After this I typically try to narrow it down further by searching themes but sometimes it seems like what would be obvious themes to me are not the way Colnect has a stamp categorized. So, for example, I searched "public transport" with no results for this stamp, and then "aircraft" with no results for this stamp, and then finally, "railways" and this stamp showed up in the search results. Can stamps not be present in multiple categories? How is a theme determined by Colnect? Also, I can tell you that the middle stamp, the 80å…ƒ, was even harder to find and I had to sift through pages of stamps in the year of issue, 2004, for this stamp. It has no obvious theme. Do you have any recommendations in searching for stamps with no obvious theme or when that theme is difficult to determine when you can't read the language present? Themes can be up to eight different per stamp, it really depends on what the contributors consider the proper theme of the stamp, and users are free to request additional themes be added. The method you used to find things is about the best way if you know the year of issue (which on modern issues tends to be included on the stamp, though sometimes countries use the date of image creation and may not issue stamp until the following year. To speed up the search for the image per year, you might want to set the display to show say 50 or 100 images at a time rather than say 10 or 20. The setting to change display is at the top left of the page where it says "showing" next to a drop down menu. You can also change the nature of the display by clicking on the icon to the right of "quick mark" to show images with detail, just details, or just images. You can also upload an image of the stamp you want to identify to Colnect's Image search which often does quite well in matching submitted images with those in the database, though it works better on unused stamps compared to used. The link to image search is at the top middle of the page in red to the right of the search function for text searches. colnect.com/en/stamps/identify |
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hrdoktorx
Member
Posts: 7,186
What I collect: France (and French territories), Africa, Canada, USA, Germany, Guatemala, stamps about science, flags, maps, stamps on stamps...
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Post by hrdoktorx on Apr 24, 2021 20:30:48 GMT
As an example the group of stamps included on my most recent received postcard was tricky to find, even though in two cases the year of issue is included on the stamp. Actually, one feature of Chinese commemorative stamps that I particularly appreciate is that they not only indicate the year of issue, but also the set number for that year, and which stamp it is in the set, which makes it very easy to order them in my stockbook! For example, the middle stamp on the Postcrossing card shown says 2004-12 in the bottom left corner and (1-2) in the bottom right corner. This means that it is part of the 12 th issue from 2004, that this issue was a set of two stamps, and that this stamp is the first of the two. China is not the only country to use this scheme, but it may be the one that uses it most extensively. This system started with the 1951 "Second anniversary of the Popular Republic" issue (pictured below is the 5 th stamp from that series, wearing the ID "1.5-5 ... <5>"), though at first it did not have a year of issue and set number, but only a continuous series of set numbers, as well as a number in parentheses for the issue count since the beginning of the year. Years of issue appear a little later (my first stamp with one is from 1953). The continuous numbering of stamp sets will appear up to 1991. In 1992 the format changes to the one we find today. Stamps without this information are definitive issues that are printed continuously for several years.  |
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darkormex
Member
Swinging through Switzerland and getting tied up in Thailand
Posts: 2,196
What I collect: The World...just printing and mounting as I go...call me crazy!
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Post by darkormex on Apr 25, 2021 0:10:31 GMT
djcmh , thank you for your help with this. Also thank you for the reminder about uploading the image. I keep forgetting about this new features of Colnect. hrdoktorx , thank you for the reminder. I was aware of this already. I have been collecting PRC stamps for quite a while but it is one of those collections that I haven't focused on for a while. PRC has issued some beautiful stamps over the years.
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darkormex
Member
Swinging through Switzerland and getting tied up in Thailand
Posts: 2,196
What I collect: The World...just printing and mounting as I go...call me crazy!
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Post by darkormex on Apr 25, 2021 13:24:58 GMT
Last night I found the theme/topical filter really useful for the US, as I am sure it is for other countries. I needed to find music and music related stamps for a trade with a gentleman in India that I set-up over instragram. I was surprised how many music related stamps there are and how many I had on my stock pages for this trade. Music related stamps start with the 1940 Famous Americans Series - Composers, issued in May of that year.
For some reason I have had it stuck in my head that the only way to identify stamps of a particular theme was to rely on the American Topical Association or skim through my Scott Catalogue. Sometimes I feel like my increasingly old head is stuck in it's ways.
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angore
Member
Posts: 5,684
What I collect: WW, focus on British Empire
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Post by angore on May 1, 2021 10:39:40 GMT
I was experimenting with Colnect's stamp identifier app (Android) yesterday. It worked quite well on a few modern Great Britain stamps I tried once I cropped off all the perforations.
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angore
Member
Posts: 5,684
What I collect: WW, focus on British Empire
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Post by angore on May 2, 2021 10:18:17 GMT
I tried using Colnect to visually search for issues while sorting some stamps. I logged in as a member but do not pay for the premium membership. Logging in is better than not since you see more results per page.
I first selected the country, then the denomination as in all "22" stamps. The results are year groups list such as 1989, 1990, 1992, etc. No images seen yet.
I then selected a year and now see all images meeting criteria for that year. Then I delete the year from the criteria bar and saw all the issues (all years). If you get more than 50 images? it will be on more than one view,.
Is there an easier way to see all years without going through the above steps? I just want to see as many images for a particular denomination to make a visual identification when I have no clue on what year it was issued. I would just like to select the denomination and skip having to go through the remaining stamps to see the results.
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djcmh
Member
Posts: 794
What I collect: Worldwide
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Post by djcmh on May 3, 2021 15:42:20 GMT
Angore if you click on the total number of stamps above where the years are listed (where is says showing x number of years, y stamps total) It should bring up the images altogether on one page.
I *think* you can increase the number of stamps shown per page by clicking on the drop menu next to "showing" at top left of page once all the images come up.
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angore
Member
Posts: 5,684
What I collect: WW, focus on British Empire
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Post by angore on May 3, 2021 17:44:14 GMT
Thanks. That works. I did not realize I could click on that
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djcmh
Member
Posts: 794
What I collect: Worldwide
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Post by djcmh on Jun 15, 2021 4:32:35 GMT
The Exploring Stamps Youtube Channel has done a review of Colnect's Image Recognition App for Collectibles (focusing on stamps). Sharing the video here
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darkormex
Member
Swinging through Switzerland and getting tied up in Thailand
Posts: 2,196
What I collect: The World...just printing and mounting as I go...call me crazy!
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Post by darkormex on Jun 15, 2021 23:51:31 GMT
djcmh, I was going to post about this too. I was using the Colnect stamp identifier app the other night and had very good success with it identifying some stamps of Yugoslavia as opposed to going back and forth in the pages of the Scott catalogue trying to find stamps with no image represented.
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angore
Member
Posts: 5,684
What I collect: WW, focus on British Empire
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Post by angore on Jun 16, 2021 10:11:46 GMT
I must be using the older app so will give the upgrade a try,
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djcmh
Member
Posts: 794
What I collect: Worldwide
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Post by djcmh on Jun 22, 2021 12:03:47 GMT
While the vast majority of our listings in the Colnect Stamps catalog are for postage stamps, Colnect has been fortunate enough to have a couple dedicated Revenue stamp collectors become regular contribuors to the catalog, so that we are now starting to develop for some countries a good listing of revenue stamps. For some postal administrations we have now split the revenues off into a new separate listing within the catalog so that postal and revenue items are in separate listings (this is something we plan to do for all revenues in the coming weeks). An overview of the current revenue and postal-fiscal holdings (postal-fiscals will remain with the main postal listings since they are considered postage stamps by the main catalogs) can be found here, with almost 20000 items listed : colnect.com/en/stamps/countries/emission/19o29-Postal_Fiscal-OR-Revenue Colnect has also launched a redesign of the main index page, creating "sub-listings" for items within a country. This was mainly done to reduce the number of separate postal administration listings on the main page, and also to allow new sub-category pages for revenues (and eventually cinderellas, illegal stamps and personalized-private mail stamps) to be created. To see the new page layout (which is still in testing phase and currently is being run alongside the original page to get feedback from users regarding the new system) see here : colnect.com/en/stamps/countries_regions To access a "sub-listsing" click on the blue inverted triangle next to a postal administration's name (only those postal administrations with blue triangles have sub-groups). |
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angore
Member
Posts: 5,684
What I collect: WW, focus on British Empire
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Post by angore on Sept 19, 2021 12:43:27 GMT
Does anyone know the format needed for the "catalog code" field of the Colnect mew item submission form. I interpret this like Sn (Stamp number) but not sure if they are looking for the actual number. On the main search you add an actual number but not sure how you associate something like Sn 1053. I see a "CC-..." but Sn-XXXX (X is a number) does not seem to satisfy to form input criteria.  |
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djcmh
Member
Posts: 794
What I collect: Worldwide
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Post by djcmh on Sept 19, 2021 12:54:18 GMT
Catalog code is formed by a combination of the country code and the catalogue number of the stamp based on the catalogue you chose in the top of the NIfiller.
So Scott USA 1053 would have a catalogue code of
US 1053
And that is alk you need. The catalogue publisher abbreviation is generated based on the catalogue you chose in the Catalogue 1 field at the top of the form.
ETA - at the bottom of the form, color is a REQUIRED field to be entered. If the stamp has more than 2 colors just enter multicolor.
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angore
Member
Posts: 5,684
What I collect: WW, focus on British Empire
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Post by angore on Sept 19, 2021 12:57:57 GMT
Another Colnect question How do I limit the search using a catalog code (a number) to a specific catalog numbering system.  If I enter the catalog code (a number), the results are all instances of that number in all catalogs (Sn, Yvert, Michel,etc). If I just want to see Sn 22, how do I do this? Note I only have premium membership (non-paying tier). |
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djcmh
Member
Posts: 794
What I collect: Worldwide
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Post by djcmh on Sept 19, 2021 13:25:57 GMT
Another Colnect question How do I limit the search using a catalog code (a number) to a specific catalog numbering system. If I enter the catalog code (a number), the results are all instances of that number in all catalogs (Sn, Yvert, Michel,etc). If I just want to see Sn 22, how do I do this? Note I only have premium membership (non-paying tier). This in not possible at present. Entering the catalog code to search by will bring up all examples of that code. If you are looking for that number in a specific country, click on the country first, then do search by catalog code (here you only need to enter the catalog number, not the country code) and then just those stamps with that catalog number will appear . |
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angore
Member
Posts: 5,684
What I collect: WW, focus on British Empire
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Post by angore on Sept 19, 2021 17:31:56 GMT
Yes I do narrow it down to country first so a search for any number yields year groups containing stay!ps from each catalogs with the number.
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