Silly Airmail Question.

I have C2 and C3 and was looking on ebay for a decent price for a C1.

While looking at one listing that was selling all 3 of them at once and I noticed the dates of issue go from the 24 cent to the 16 cent and then the 6 cent. I never knew that before and just read up on why they came out in that order.

My question is why doesn't Scott list them in the same order of release rather than by denomination. Shouldn't the 24c stamp really be C1?

In one word "YES".

Not a silly question at all. I've heard this question many times, so I consider it a very legitimate question.

But here is my silly answer...

Scott does not list stamps in exact chronological order, although they generally try to list sets in chronological order according to when the first stamp in the set was issued.

Otherwise, within a set, Scott generally lists things in order of increasing denomination.

That is why C1 is the 6c airmail, even though C3 (the 24c airmail) was actually issued first.

In reality, very very few of us arrange our stamps in exact chronological order. When I was younger and my collection was much smaller, I tried to do that but soon found out it was cumbersome and didn't look very good.

The fact is, most album pages do not have the stamps in exact chronological order. They are arranged so that the geometric appearance of the stamp spots are aesthetically pleasing.

All the major catalogs generally list stamps in the same way as Scott. Otherwise, you end up breaking up obvious sets, as not all sets were issued simultaneously. Furthermore, it would be a huge headache finding a stamp in the catalog if it were not grouped into sets. There would be literally tens of thousands of additional "see also ###, ###, ###..." footnotes in Scott.

As much as I rant against the way Scott does things, I have to admit I am in agreement with Scott on this particular matter.

Just my thoughts/opinion.

But I am definitely interested in hearing other opinions.

k

Good points and thanks for the clarication.

Just seems weird that they wouldn't have at least done the initial airmail releases in order. Especially since the 6 and 24 cent stamps were issued over 6 months away from each other.

While it is true that C1 was issued in December, while C3 was issued back in May, Scott does not immediately assign catalog numbers. Also, Scott will reserve catalog numbers if they know or think that a set will expand. I do not know the exact mechanics of how Scott made the assignments, as I do not have a 1919 Scott catalog.

However, I can tell you that back then, the airmail stamp was NOT considered back-of-the-book. In fact, those first 3 airmail stamps were actually assigned #520-522, as part of the normal postage listing, in part because those stamps were valid as ordinary postage. Other "BoB" stamps were allocated larger catalog numbers -- for instance, official stamps started at #1500.

Scott realized that the catalog numbers allocated for ordinary postage stamps (#1-1449) would eventually be exhausted. So later on, Scott did a major restructuring of their catalog numbers, and introduced the "prefix" system, where a capital letter prefix was used to denote semipostal, airmail, special delivery... stamps.

When they did that, the old #520-#522 was shifted to #C1-#C3. If you look at a modern Scott catalog, you will see that #520-#522 are "missing".

Well, that's probably more than you wanted to know. But, too bad.

k

LOL - no, that's actually quite interesting. Thanks for the info

Here's what the original listing looked like back in the pre-1920 era:



Don't we all wish we could buy the stamps for those prices today!

khj,

I learn something new everyday on this site. I did not know that the airmails started out as 520-522. It would be nice if Scott had notes to indicate such in their current catalogs. Thanks for the info.

Art

While Scott does not make many catalog number changes every year, they do add up over the decades.

This is another reason not to pencil in the catalog numbers on the back of the stamps. I've actually seen stamps with what appeared to be an incorrect catalog number written on back -- actually, it was the old catalog number!

I do wish Scott would maintain a database of all the number changes over the years. It does come in useful. I tried to start one once, but since I don't have access to every edition of the Scott catalog...

The C3 was issued on May 13, 1918 and reflected 14 cents for the airmail (per oz) and 10 cents for special delivery. On July 15, 1918 the airmail rate was reduced to 6 cents/oz with 10 cent special delivery (C2). On Dec 15 sepcial delivery was made optional with C1 paying airmail rate only.

Gerat question and lots of information with those answers. Always learning something new. Isnt it great!