Another Collecting Problem

Hi. I'm a true stamp collector in that I have unwavering opinions on most things. here's my take.

First, I have huge respect for Robin Harris, editor of the Unitrade catalogue. He's trying to make Unitrade a true specialized catalogue so is adding lots of detail each year. Great move.

But, he's stuck with Scott numbers and likely can't change that. Every Canadian dealer (and most Canadian collectors) have their collections and stock ordered by Scott and that's not likely to change.

The 500/600/601 sequence issue is a Scott issue then. And Scott's been pretty consistent in how they deal with definitive sets. I dislike how they do it, but it's consistent.

Scott orders definitive sets by denomination, without regard to date of issue. So for sure the two $1 stamps will be listed before the $2 stamp.

But Scott also makes a big deal about printing methods. Often, they'll give different printing methods of the same design separate major numbers. That's what they've done here. So 599 could be listed as a sub-type of 600, but that's not the Scott way.

Scott also groups things by printing method. So using 'Scott thinking', you have to group 600 and 601 together because they share printing method.

They can't put the '599' stamp after, because that means the definitive set is listed $1, $2, $1. Makes no sense if you're Scott.

Personally, I vastly prefer the Michel / Facit method that Keijo shared. In this case there's only one major number for the $1 stamp and the printing differences are listed as sub-types.

There can be a big difference between how stamps are catalogued and how they are displayed, of course. Firstfrog2013 has shared a lot of pages that are written up in a way that makes sense to him. Excellent!

Pat Hearst often wrote "Don't be a slave to the catalogue". He was referring to pricing, but it also pertains to how we arrange things too.

Mark

PS - the curious nature of the listings is especially noticeable in Unitrade because there is a lot more detail and space than Scott. Look how many inches of space were given over to three stamps! Makes the "problems" stand out more than if they were just listed in a tight block.

Scott does at times seem out of touch with the realities of the philatelic world. However,  I am used to relying on Scott and, since they do a fine job (strictly my opinion) on the US, I tend to accept their system.  I recently purchased my first Unitrade edition, and can see where Canadian collectors have ample ground for grumbling and agree there is much room for improvement; but I also agree with 1stfrog that it is unlikely to happen soon due to the monumental task of reorganizing the data and the almost certain resistance from the dealers (who, after all, support Scott and Unitrade).

I was beginning to think I was the only rebel.I can see that others are a growing voice as well. Maybe some day soon a young gun will come along and conquer the challenge. It might do the hobby good for a little shake up. Scott should take notice of the grumbling in the wings.

I'm on the same lines as madbaker/Mark. Catalogs (and catalog numbers) are nothing but guidelines, and as such I use them. The deeper I voyage on my philatelic journey, the more I depart from what's being written on catalog pages. That's just the nature of the beast.

Re online catalogs... I've written time and again (but will say it again) that re-inventing the wheel is IMHO not the best strategy. The publishers already have most of the required data so there is seriously no need for anyone to start from the scratch (similar to what Colnect etc. crowd-sourced catalogs have been doing for several years). That is just 'wasting' everybody's time and resources (instead of copying text from sourceA to sourceB, these people could actually come up with new details or increase accuracy instead).  And the dealers/sellers/collectors are not willing to move into new numbering system; again - that would just waste of everybody's time and resources.

The BIG issue is that everybody who's already in the game (Michel, Scott, SG, Yvert etc) are guarding 'their precious data/format' beyond sanity (and eventually losing out). If these folks were genuinely interested on this hobby (and even interested on making $$$), they would have put their money/effort on developing a bunch of simple web services that would allow anyone to query their data in number of ways. This in turn would allow developers to come out with 'thin client' apps etc that would add a bit of magic on top of everything out there (think of this as Google vs. Yahoo search; both have more or less the same data, but one is better than the other)

So in a way catalog publishers could focus on building up and maintaining the data, whereas geeks (like yours truly) could work on developing the apps. This is how it works with most industries out there (have an weather app on your phone? No, the geeks who made these do not own weather stations - they just rent/access the data provided).


Most of the problems/issues of current catalogs are somewhat easy to solve from technical point of view. Take for example the question of whether or not airmail stamps are listed separately or not. This is nothing but a matter of presentation in an app; few lines of code could do everyone happy (and provide every combination imaginable to match the tastebuds of different types of collectors). Even catalog numbers could remain the same (as they are nothing but unique identifiers in limited scope). Or what about image-based search/seek? Again, not that difficult (assuming you would have images of all the stamps and you'd know how to code properly)...

The only thing lacking is an 'open API' providing access to data for 'those-who-can-code'.  Sadly it seems we'll have to wait till hell freezes over (maybe multiple times) before catalog publishers learn from their mistakes. Sigh. 

just my 5 cents worth,

-k-

You're the guy to build it, Keijo. Now we just need someone on "the inside" to listen. I'll be searching out want ads at the major catalogue printers later this afternoon. Maybe I can find a job in the mail room or something.

Mark