Mystic Catalogs Uses

Being a Mystic Stamp customer I receive their catalog several times a year. I have found several ways to recycle them.

It is a good pocket reference source (much lighter than a Scott Specialized!

I have found another use for the interesting historic write-ups and statistics that are in the catalog. I clip them out and put them with in my collection with the stamp(s) they discuss. It is an easy write up for my collection and since I use Vario pages quite easy to move around. (When I "borrow" write ups like that I always footnote the source if it isn't readily apparent that it is a clip out.)

I also cut out my "need" stamps from the catalog and tape them in a notebook for quick reference - a picture is worth a thousand words.

Do any of you have uses for Mystic or other stamp catalogs or old albums?

I have no idea what a Mystic catalogue looks like, do you have a pic? Are they just for US stamps?

thanks

alex

Hi Perf14,

Here's a link to the Mystic site
http://www.mysticstampcatalog.com/

You used to be able to get a free hardcopy in the mail. They would send the free catalog along with some stamps on approval and you would be automatically signed up to receive future shipments of stamps on approval. If you didn't want the stamps, you could send them back, but you had to pay for any stamps that you didn't return. you could cancel the stamps on approval at any time.
I like the catalogs to use as a checklist of USA stamps I have and /or need.

You can probably still get the hard copy catalog, but they now have it online at the website I linked to.

Hope this helps,

Dave N.
<><

Dave N.
<><

I use back issues to give to kids that are just starting out collecting.

My boys also use it as a Christmas and birthday "wish list." They go through and circle the stamps they would like. I tell them that they will have to wait for the first hundred or so stamps until they have their own jobs and can afford them themselves!

I have also cut out the pictures and used them to illustrate posters for our stamp club. Everyone always does a double-take when they think that I have laminated the higher value stamps.

Another thing I plan on doing with the catalogs is using the pictures to make a matching game for the kids in our stamp club to play. The USPS's stamp magazine is also excellent for this project, too.

Thank you for the link, oldtriguy, it is a very handy looking catalogue. I will certainly use it once I start collecting US.

At the moment I am focusing on GB and B.Commonwealth, I haven't found anything similar yet, although the SG concise is heading that way.

:)

My only problem is that they send it, and lots of spam, 2-3x a week. In the past 2 months, I've gotten 3 different catalogs and tons of "buy this!" spam that just goes into the shredder. I appreciate the catalog, I just didn't need the 2010 catalog, the 2010-2011 catalog and the 2011 catalog one after the other.

Sounds like Windows Updates or Java updates...they drive me bonkers. Can't they get it right in one go at least once? lol

:)

Sometimes I wonder how they stay in business. They sent me the EXACT SAME MAIL SPAM 3 days in a row. Identical. All of them went into the shredder. If I didn't buy it the first time, I'm not going to buy it the next two times either.

I receive a Stanley Gibbons brochure after buying some old-stock catalogues from them. The last one, I cut out an illustration of some GB stamps from the cover and stuck it on to brighten up a plain envelope of trading stuff I sent to a fellow SCF member.
"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!"

I was thumbing thru my mystic catalog right before I found this thread and wonder if anybody can answer a question for me. I noticed many of the stamps pictures have a thin black diagonal line through the bottom. I assume to stop reuse in some way but not all stamps do. Any ideas why this is?

Isn't the black line required by law? I know that many years ago US stamps could not be reproduced full size, but had to be smaller or larger. That law is not longer in effect evidently. In the very old Scott catalogs, the illustrations are almost drawings and not photos.

I don't know if the line is an actual LAW, but yes, it is intended to make counterfeiting more difficult.

And it's used in other countries besides the USA; e.g., this scan from the Canada Post archives:

I use my catalog as a checklist of stamps I want. The ones I have I place a check mark next to the stamp have. It's also a good quick reference.

I dug mine out. It's a 1996 catalog that's been sitting between a stack of manilla stock pages and a first day + moon landing sheet, acting as a sort of cushion. Judging by the looks of the sheet, it doesn't serve this purpose well at all. It did serve as a useful reference since it was in color, and the Scott catalog wasn't at the time. Most, but not all, of the stamps have a diagonal line just like the one in the Canada Post picture above, only thinner.

I thought the line was for anti counterfeiting but was confused by the stamps that were unmarked.