At What Point Does A Country's Postage Stamps Just Become Stickers?

My point was that collectors may not want an editor or publisher deciding for them what was worthy and what was not. Government sanctions are another issue since a publisher really has no recourse in that case

Now that Scott catalogs have gone digital you would think that it would be a no-brainer to offer ala carte selections of countries and periods. Like car manufacturers though they make their $$$ selling the loaded models.

Timm - the first answer to your thread title question that came to mind is anything produced by Stamperija.

Floor - "I been saying we need a cut-off ,something like 1970 . Issue a Classic catalog for 1840 to 1940" - ot exists and is called he Scott classic.
"then a Golden period 1941- thru 1970 specialized . End it there" While it started in 1840 not 1941, Gibbons used (no more?) issue a GB & Commonwealth catalog that ended with 1970. Why 1970? That is re las year they used the sterling pound. 1971 introduced the decimal pound.

Cjd - "Since we're all going to have a slightly different set of factors, I vote for letting the catalogue companies list it all and letting each collector sort out what is interesting to that collector." In theory I would tend to agree, but in practice we are paying a big price for all that Stamperija wallpaper (see St Thomas as an example if you are not familiar) as the Scott catalog balloons in size and we have to pay for all those extra pages and pay for someone at Scott to add those listings to the catalog and then we get to flip past those pages when we look for what we are actually interested in.

Gibbons still issues a Commonwealth & British Empire 1840-1970. I have to believe it would be the last thing they would cancel. Could anything else be a better seller? (Guessing.)

As to the explosion of stamps, it seems that there are many "mainstream" countries who flood the market with unnecessary issues, too. As a child, it used to be fascinating to me that there were countries listed in the almanac that had tourism and postage stamps as their main industries. I don't know how I feel about cutting off that income stream?

It's all a bit theoretical to me because my main cutoff is 1936, or 1940, or 1955-ish, depending. Unless something newer is interesting, in which case...

The UPU (Universal Postal Union) has a lot to say if a country has issued a stamp that is recognized as legitimate for international postage.

Commercial publishers have influence, but only because we (hobbyists and dealers) give it to them. Other organizations, for example the FIP, also have influence by only recognizing what they consider legitimate stamps.
Don

Easy: don't use Scott.

I think we have to step back and see what some of the major influences to the hobby before we can talk about what we like to see from the Scott catalog .

First ---The album makers ....is Steiner going to quit updating their CD, or calling it done ? . Does Scott continue their Blue International ?

Second ---Do dealers offer post -1970 or 1980,1990 complete sets or is there a major drop off in what the dealers are selling ,remember dealers are not going to offer something very long if they are not selling it .

Third ---- What are the Stamp Auction Houses doing . When they sell a collection up to what date do the figure the catalog value up to ? Do they say for example Great Britain collection cat. value $1300 ,stamps from 1840 to 1960 or do they skip any dates and just figure it as hundreds of modern stamps ? I see auction firms giving a estimate amount of stamps and just use a .05 per stamp and the large collection just a blanket starting price of .10 cents per stamp . I am seeing a 2 cents per stamp in a box or a stockbook and stamps mounted in albums at 5 to 10 cents each , so for me to get pages and pages of modern material it is 5 to 10 cents per stamp at a auction house .

I am sure the catalog firms are looking at this too .Seriously how many people are buying modern material anywhere close to catalog value ? A set of 12 catalogs from Scott is over $600.00 how long before it is $800.00 or $1,000 . They got to cut it somewhere ,so maybe a four volume set at $500.00 once every 3 years .

Cjd - I was mistakenly thinking of the Part 1 Brit CW (which went past 1970) - the last one of those I have seen was dated 2001.

Perhaps the UPU needs to regulate more as to what is a postage stamp.

Strictly speaking, wouldn't the answer to the original question simply be whether or not the stamp is valid for postage or not? If so, it is not simply a "sticker" even though it may be produced to market to buyers who don't intend to use them for postage, but merely as collectibles.

Royal Mail issues a lot of miniature and souvenir sheets that contain stamps you can use for postage. They tend to be for the normal tariffs. At the same time, they use 'Smilers' personalised stamp sheets. Gibbons lists the former and mentions the latter. The reason they do not list the personalised stamps is that even the generic issues - often a new variety - are sold over face value. As for miniature sheets, they did not list the stamps individually. All these stamps are valid for postal use, but hardly used to pay for postage.

The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, and Correos (Spain) issue many souvenir sheets containing stamps with a face value that have little or no currency. They are valid for postage and could be used on a parcel or registered letter. But unless you write a twenty-page letter, you will have no use for them on a normal letter.

As for Cuba and North Korea: something that is unthinkable here.
As for the 'Sand Dune' countries: a lot of those issue are very questionable. These are countries that take a dim view to women driving cars and crawl back to the stone age when female nudity is concerned. Nor are they known for their open-mindedness towards practising Christianity. There are countries that will pass a death sentence on a Muslim converting to Christianity. Yet, we are made to believe stamps depicting nude paintings and Christian art are genuine?

Actually, many "Muslim countries" - including the UAE/Trucial States - aren't antagonistic to the practising of Christianity, although they will limit Muslims' interaction with it. That doesn't alter the dross nature of the Dunes stamps, of course.

'Interaction' is different from 'converting to' and, rarely, does it mean depicting Christian symbols for official use.

If anything, in the Middle Ages Muslims were very tolerant of both Christians and Jews. Christians showed little such tolerance. Things have not improved much over the centuries.

No catalog will ever please everyone as there are too many borderline issues. Where to draw the line will never be a clear and easy decision.

But every collector CAN decide what they will collect. IMHO, we collectors shouldn't let catalog editors dictate what and how we should collect. The development of DIY albums means you don't need to be a slave to trying to fill empty spaces in an album, either. Also, if no one buys the "stickers" the printers make little money and look elsewhere to make a profit. We aren't sheep, we're smarter than that, eh?

One solution - If you only collect postally used, not cancelled to order or any other courtesy cancel, you avoid most scurrilous issues. Or set a cutoff date that ends a collection when the junk issues first appear.

Think of philately as a great big menu in a nice restaurant. You wouldn't order something you don't like there, would you? Only order what is tasty to you.