Pershing Stamp - Scott 1042A Becomes 1214 In 2013 Catalog

So what do you think of the change announced in the 10/01/2012 edition of Linn's Stamp News advising that the 2013 Scott Specialized Catalog of US Stamps will remove the General John J. Pershing Stamp of 1961 (Scott 1042A) from the "Liberty Series" definitives and will re-list the stamp as Scott 1214?

Making a change like that after more than 50 years is a rare occurrence and I hope it doesn't mean other changes will occur in the future.

Maybe the Scott catalog publishers just need a reason to sell more new catalogs to the stamp collecting public.

That's OK with me. I never included Pershing with my Liberties, since the design elements are different. My U.S. definitives are stored in stock pages so moving things around is easy (not that I have to move General Pershing, since he's with Jackson and Washington already).
Regards, Robert

Since many of us don't put our collections in exact Scott order, it really won't affect us that much.

However, it is silly for Scott to make such a major renumbering change 50 years after the fact. It's a pain for any buyers/sellers who might be looking for this stamp by Scott number.

In fact, while Scott is at it, why don't they remove US #3 & #4. They were reprints and not valid for postage. According to Scott editorial policy, they should not be given catalog ID numbers. And, while they are at it, they should remove the 1875 Centennial special printings (again, based on Scott editorial policy). They were obviously of exceptionally limited distribution -- it comes as no surprise that there are only "finger-full" of postally used examples, even though most of that batch of special printings was valid for postage.

I'm not promoting those ideas -- merely pointing out that Scott should just leave decades old catalog numbers alone, unless there is some ID error or question regarding legitimacy. There will be no end to catalog number changes if Scott keeps caving in to this group and that group. Can't make everybody happy, and making too many changes will end up making everybody unhappy.

About time, that's been bugging me for years.

So, what exactly prompted this change from Scott? As listed above, there is so much more housecleaning that needs to be done.

Maybe nothing will be off-limits. What are they going to do next, remake The Treasures of Sierra Madre into a rap musical?

I believe I'll leave my 1042A/1214 just where it is since I'll bet neither Mystic nor any of the other album manufacturers will be providing errata pages moving it to the corrected location. It sure is odd though that initially Scott placed it in with the Liberty series based on the release date. I also found it curious that numbers 1214-1224 were not originally assigned thus allowing Scott to slide the "new" 1214 in without any difficulty. Would appear that someone may have been thinking strongly about this change way back in the early '60s. I agree with khj regarding all recent, past, and future special printings. These new imperfs will have us all chasing our tails forever and benefit no one except the USPS.

Well, I guarantee you that Scott will rethink their decision and give them numbers when every other catalog lists them.

Someone with this pet peeve finally got high enough on the pecking order to get the change made.

There is a "good" reason for every change. The only issue is whether or not you have enough clout to get the change done.

I wouldn't mind this if Scott kept an online archive of the number changes. All they have to do is upload pdf of the already existing "number changes" page for each catalog. I used to keep a list, but gave up because I don't have access to all the Scott catalog editions.

As a WW collector, it's a bit annoying. And yeah, they make number changes that do affect the WW Classic catalog as well. The most annoying are the ###<==>###a switcheroos. When I'm looking for these, I always have to check to see if the seller is using the "old catalog numbers" or the "newest catalog numbers". Sometimes the seller is simply selling old prepared stock from someone else -- they may be using the most recent catalog, but don't realize that Scott has swapped the catalog numbers for that stamp.

I reiterate, Scott should leave 50+ year old catalog numbers alone unless there is an ID error or a question of legitimacy. My opinion (but I have no clout with the editors -- probably a good thing, too ).

Or when they run out or reasons to give people to update to the next edition catalog.

The advantage of being the editor or the owner is that you don't actually have to abide by your own rules (or, that you can change the rules any time you like).

Just a reminder: I scanned/revised my Mystic Stamp Album pages to reflect the changes noted. While the Mystic pages provides plenty of room to easily accommodate the change, remember that the title on page 319 needs to be changed, too, as it should now read "1961-66 Regular Issue Stamps" (not 1962-66). It presents another dilemma, however, in that the pages are now out of chronological sequence. To put the pages in chronological sequence will, as a result, require a lot of changes to the facing pages that has descriptions of the stamps included.

I've opted to keep the pages in the same order as they were originally, even though the title date has been changed to "1961-66 Regular Issue Stamps".

Over my dead body. Fred C Dobbs

If you have a page of the Liberty Series, the Pershing stamp always stood out like a sore thumb. It so obviously does not belong with the other stamps in the series. I do not see substantial problems with the reassignment of the Pershing stamp to the others in the catalog where it is more in tune with the designs.

There is a rather substantial discussion in the Yahoo group devoted to the Liberty Series.

What is this all about?