Imagine If Every Catalog Publisher Specialized

Image my perfect catalog world.

Scott catalogs US numbers and gives them to other catalog makers to use. Michel catalogs Germany and does the same. SG does Britian and former colonies. HIbernian does Ireland, etc.

Then when you buy the Scott Catalog and look under Germany, you see Michel numbers. And a Stanley Gibbons catalog user opens to the US section and gets Scott numbers.

It's pretty clear to me that if you're a serious collector of another country, you are going to buy the catalog used in that country. Why should Scott invest the time and money to catalog German stamps, when Michel can do ti for them and vice-versa.

Why would any catalog publisher voluntarily slash his business? Also, the insurmountable language problem. I understand about a third of the German I read in Michel, even with a GPS philatelic dictionary.

You wouldn't turn to Germany and see Michel pages in German. You would turn to Germany in the scott catalog and see pages in English with Michel catalog numbers.

I'm starting to collect Ireland, and my 2009 Scott Catalog does me no good, since every bidstart and ebay listing for these stamps uses Stanley Gibbons catalog numbers.