Now That I Have Actually Sat Down With The Scott Catalogs...

So, I sat down and tried to use the Scott catalogs to give me a list of all the stamps the USPS produced in 2002 and 2003.

What a complete PITA! A lot of the definitives that were published over multiple years are given major Scott catalog numbers, but are listed only under the first year they were issued. So, if the same design was used in 2001, 2002, and 2003, but with a different date on it, you will only the 2002 and 2003 listings under 2001.

I went an designed some pages and was wondering why Steiner's pages had so many more stamps than I did.

Wow that's sounds like a nightmare trying to make that system work on album pages!

I ran into same problem when trying to organize my collection in Lighthouse stockbooks by year of issue so that for example all 2001 issues were together etc. basically had to keep list of definitives on a piece of paper sorted by year and refer to it as I start a new year in the stockbooks. Personally I like the look of having all the stamps issued in a year grouped together even if that means you don't have a whole series issued over multiple years on the same single page. But that the beauty of collecing, no one right way to do it, just set things up as you see fit for what you like.

It would be nice if they put a footnote in subsequent years telling me to flip back to another year to see the stamp.

It can be a little subtle and indirect, but you can get back to the original stamp by looking at the illustration number (the A__ number for regular postal issues; different prefixes for BOB items).

-- Dave

The issue is some definitives that have a design used over a number of years will only be listed under one year. You can't look at a Scott Catalog in the 2000s (perhaps other decades too), and go to a certain year and see every stamp issued that year.

I know that many do not care for it, For US & Canada, but Brookman does show the picture of the stamp and lists under that pic all scott numbers associated with it. Of course, it does not have the detail of Scott but I do find it useful.

I think I am looking for the opposite. When I look up a certain year, I want every stamp for that year listed there, even if the same design is used in another year. If it has a different Scott number, it should be listed both grouped with the same design AND under the year the stamp was issued. Picture only needs to be in one place, but listing should be in two.