Does Scott Sometimes Skip A Number?

Hi I had a nice example from Scott Specialized BOB listings of Scott numbering in a pattern such as 84 85 86 88 89. That is the 87 is missing. Was I having a Sr moment or does Scott sometimes somewhere skip or drop a number? I cannot find the example but I am pretty sure I have not lost my mind. It corresponded with a missing number in the Scott revenue album so it was not just the catalogue, thanks

Yes, Scott often skips numbers. I have put every number between x and y on my want list, and could not find certain stamps. When I checked the catalog, I discovered I was chasing a nonexistent stamp.

Scott sometimes "saves" numbers when it anticipates a series of stamps but if saved is one or several too many then then number many not be issued. Likewise if a listed stamp is delisted then the number can be left vacant.

Just curious, what series and stamp(s) number(s) are you referencing?

I agree with parcelpostguy ... what specific numbers did you have in mind? Each gap has different reasons as the catalog had been edited and corrected as new varieties have been listed, delisted, moved around due to new scholarship and discoveries.
Also, this has been discussed before in several threads, to give a taste, some of them are:
http://goscf.com/t/53231
http://goscf.com/t/63803
http://goscf.com/t/45374

Whenever this topic arises the first US Scott numbers that come to mind are 55 to 62 which no longer exist and now live in the Essays and Proof sections of Scott with the exception of 58 which is now 62B. 48 through 62 are also missing but I am unaware of the story behind that.

In the early days Scott would list stamps as 1,2,3,4,5 ,then they started using sub lettering ,so now we could have 1,2,3, 3a ,5 ,with 3a being a shade difference then delisting the 4 .

As an earlier post indicated, Scott will, on occasion, reserve a set of catalogue numbers for an upcoming series. The FON (Flags of Our Nation) series comes to mind. These were issued over a period of 5 years (2008-2012) yet they occupy a continuous string of 60 catalogue numbers. For this series, Scott knew in advance exactly how many stamps would be issued. Hence there are no "missing" numbers. But this is not always the case ... which can lead to "missing" numbers (too many numbers reserved) ... or numbers with capital letter suffixes (too few numbers reserved). An example of the latter might be the 1982 State Birds & Flowers issue. I'm guessing that Scott did not anticipate two different perf gauges being used, but I don't know this for a fact. In any case, Scott assigned two groups of numbers ... 1953 thru 2002 and 1953A thru 2002A. A better example might be the 1995-97 Flag over Porch coils. When you peruse the catalogue, 2915 is followed by 2915A, 2915B, 2915C & 2915D. Clearly, the issuance of so many different coils for this design was unexpected.

Scott uses both lower case and capital letters in their numbering system. You could very well have a 535a and then find 545A, 545B, 545C etc if there was a need to insert stamp(s) between existing numbers. They also use letters in front of the numbers to differentiate between regular issues (no letter), semi-postal (B), airmail (C) and so on depending on the kinds of stamps issued for each country.

520, 521 and 522 are missing because they were moved to C1, C2, and C3