Buying New Catalogs-- How Often?

My advice is only buy new catalogues when economic growth is good to strong.
The rest of the time your prices will not move much.

I find catalog prices to be extremely "optimistic." I have never been able to sell anything at catalog price and have never bought anything at catalog prices. Even when I buy stuff at the stamp store, they use the Brookman guide for pricing and not the Scott catalog.

What I really need from a catalog is catalog numbers and illustrations.

High value stamps will stay high value, common stamps with high print runs will remain common. Most stamps don't change much over the years, with few exceptions, the most obvious being China.

I have just bought the new Queen Victoria Stanley Gibbons catalogue simply because only 100 were printed and it is finished in leather (mine is number 96). I figure this will gain as much value as stamps over the years.

I came back to collecting in 2004 and I burrow the Scott catalogues at the library. They always have been keeping 3 edition with the current year for consultation. I needed them all because I was doing thematic collection. In 2009 I bought the complete 2007 cd version for $40 and I still use it. To my opinion the cd version with the search engine is much superior than the paper one but the last edition was in 2009 and I don't think it's going to come back. The only time I really need the newest catalogue is when i'm selling. I just go to the public library that is close to my place.

The PDF is gone. It has been replaced by the new iPad/iPhone app that was released today.

May be it is a stupid question, but why you need stamp catalogue in paper edition when almost every catalogue company provide it in Internet for $100/year about ?

Kug,
Not a stupid question.
The answer is obvious though.
Apart from food and warmth in the bad weather, everything else is 'non essential' but it is the nature of man to hoard.

The tactile joy of ownership is never realised with the net.

Add to this the fact that one can sit in a cosy armchair, or up in bed and read the catalogue whilst the net is more like work and you must see that paper catalogues will never be dispensed with.

Scott does not provide it on the Internet. And Scott is the go-to catalog for collectors in the US. They just came out with the iPad app, and that only has classic era and US Specialized right now.

That's why paper catalogs are still around.

Personally, I plan to go all iPad for my Scott catalog. The iPad gives me a similar experience to a book catalog without the bulk of 7 volumes.

apastuzak,
The Gibbons catalogues come leather bound and are a joy to possess.
Until apple do leather bound screens or phones paper is the medium I will love.

I am a thematic collector and it was a dream to obtain a catalog..
Infact the only world wide catalog I know in my town is the 2001 SG catalog in the philatelic buerau..

SG catalogue 2009 was listed in ebay for 60 Pounds but the postage to India was 90 pounds..
Myself being a sailor got a chance to go to UK so I purchased it and got the catalog by paying 5 pounds for postage..
So total I had to spend = 65 Pounds for SG 2009 5 volumes (Actual printed price is 45 Pounds / vol)
Being a collector who uses it for reference, I think catalog can be used for as much as you need depending on what you use it for.. at times I use it to find the year of issue, approximate prices. But if ur a dealer or some one who sell/purchase constantly, buying a recent catalog would be a good decission else what change does it make..

For people that don't want to pay high shipping for a catalog, electronic versions become ideal. The shipping cost on catalogs from anybody can get quite high when you look at a multi-volume set.

apastuszak,
If you want something, why is paying for it, a problem?