Please Show Me How You Label/Catalogue Each Stamp?

Since I'm new at this, I don't want to do a bunch of work and then have to re-do it later! What I'm looking for is a photo (I'm a visual learner!) of how you label a stamp once you've identified it. Do you put the description in a separate book from the stamps? Do you place a slip of paper with each stamp? Does that make any sense? Also, what info is crucial for ID - I'm thinking year, color, perf, watermark, plate#.

I think it would definitely depend on what country and the level of specialization in your collection.

For me, I mount most of my stamps in an album and the Scott Catalogue numbers printed on the album pages suffice for sufficient detail.

There are few threads here showing how different folks approach notes in Vario Pages and/or Stockbooks.

Here are my simplistic labels with Scott #s for my Antarctica stamps:
https://goscf.com/t/11469&whichpage=2

For more detailed labels, look at Trainwreck's post in this thread:
https://goscf.com/t/23747

Tell us more about your stamps (country, era, etc.) and some of the smart people here will be able to give you better answers than mine.

Kirk

Kirk - thank you so much for that thread! I always try searching before I ask but I either don't get what I want or I get back so many results that it's hard to go through them all! I really like the methods that both trainwreck and jamesw use!

My stamps are British and British Commonwealth/Oceana dating from about 1840-1977 I think it will be fairly easy for me to sort them into Vario pages as they are currently mounted in a Minkus album on hinges so I will just transfer them over directly in the same order that their in! :) Thanks again for the assistance!

Typically a catalog number is sufficient. All the catalogs assign each stamp a unique number. Sometimes color, perforation, paper differences etc. are given a completely different number or some other identifier is added to a main number e.g. 95 and 95a

Be sure you use the same catalog for numbering all your stamps in one area. There is no translation algorithm between different catalogs. For a long time I collected Germany and used Scott numbers. About 5 years ago I bought the Michel specialized German catalog. I had a lot of headaches "translating" numbers.

Where you put the catalog number and any other information you want about the stamp really depends on how you collect. Commercial albums do it for you. If you make your own pages or use stock pages, then it is up to you. For my specialized collections, I put the catalog number behind the stamp (on the page NOT the stamp) and have the description I want below the stamp. There are some good examples on SCF. For my "hyper-specialized" collection where there might be 10 stamps that look alike but differ by gum, paper or watermark, I put the full catalog number beneath the stamp.

Hope that helps.
Dan

Lindseyr,

I read the post you made while I was typing. *LOL* Keep in mind that your stamps are most likely cataloged with Minkus or Scott numbers. I haven't used a Minkus catalog in ages so I don't know if their numbering system is still different from Scott.

Regardless, if you choose to use Stanley Gibbon catalogs (I recall you mentioning it on another thread) it is highly unlikely that your stamps will be cataloged and ordered in the same way.

Dan

Dan - Alas - while I would like to have some SG cats, I ended up going with a seller on ebay that cuts up the Scotts and sells countries separately. For now I just picked up GB and Ireland. It was much cheaper than buying full cats. If I really decide to dig into this stamp collecting thing and take it further than what I already have, I may very well invest in a set of SG cats. Since the Minkus numbers are not the same as Scott (although I thought I remembered someone comparing them to SG...)I really want to label my stamps with descriptive info rather than just numbers. That way I can know at a glance exactly what I have! Thanks for your help - you rock!

This is my US meters "stock book"

Or Volume 3 of it anyway.





I use page protectors for holding covers and trading card or postcard pages for holding imprints on strip or piece.

Yes, it's a LOT easier to search when I remember the thread I'm looking for And still, one of my searches returned 100 pages!

But I knew if I could just find that Trainwreck post, it would give you some ideas.

I thought you might want to try that 'Stamp Tags' program, but to be honest, I find it's much easier for me to just do mine in a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel. I set my Row Height and Column Width to the desired size, then, I have a wide choice of fonts, sizes, etc.

I'm glad you asked the question - it's inspiring me to get busy working on my own to-do list

Kirk

Smauggie - goodness gracious! Do you have one room in your house that is just for stamps? Wow! Makes me a little jealous but at this time my entire collection is 2 half-filled albums...we'll see what happens from here! Thanks for the pics!

Kirk - It's always good to be inspired! That thread also helped me to settle on what info I want on the "label"! Now I need to dig into Excel - strangely enough, I actually really enjoy designing things like this! Something tells me I will fit in just fine around here!

For investment stamps, which I keep in the bank, I use the following Excel columns:
a. Country
b. Scott # (in some cases, SG number, such as Great Britain and China)
c. Condition (U, MNH, MHH, MHR, MH, CTO)
d. 2012 Catalog Value (updated every other year)
e. Adjustment % (for instance, -40% for CTO, or, +30% for superb centering)
f. Quantity
g. Total Catalog Value (d X e X f; "e" is seldom utilized)
h. Remarks (including a secondary catalog number, like Michel or Facit, and in a few cases, a URL for an article about a certain stamp, or a retail ad, etc.)

I would typically have a different "line" for each condition, for instance if I had some of the same stamp Mint Never Hinged, Mint Hinged, and Mint Hinge Remnant, the inventory would comprise 3 separate lines. In general, each line represents the contents of one small glassine envelope.

Lindseyr,



I like my albums to provide information about the stamp too. If you are going to invest the time and effort to make descriptive labels, you might want to consider making your own pages.

If you snoop around the threads here, you will find some outstanding examples of what can be done. They are much better than anything I have put together.

The learning curve for making your own pages can be a little daunting but once you get the hang of it, it is rather easy.

Here is an extreme example from my collection. It is a key issue for Soviet Zone Germany, SC 15N1/ Mi 41. Considering the photo certification on the facing page, it takes up two pages.



Dan

Doug - thank you very much for sharing!

Dan - that page is gorgeous! What kind of paper is that?

Thank you for the compliment!

If you snoop around here long enough, you will find pages that make mine look pretty basic.

The paper I use is Staple's ivory, acid free 110lb card stock. Like a lot of things in stamp collecting, opinions abound on paper type.

I collect postmarks and covers too so I selected a pretty hefty paper. It makes for a bulky album and is probably overkill for just stamps. I just didn't want to mess with different paper types.

Dan

I don't label my stamps. I have KGVI pages and the number of issues is small enough I just look them up in the catalogue if I need the number.