Did Scotts Ever Put Out An "Instruction" Booklet ???

Hi again,

Over the last year I've acquired a number of early Scotts albums and stumbled over a lot of their space descriptions and logic. I think I've got most of it figured out, but I confess it took me awhile.

Anyway, I was wondering......... Did Scotts put out an instruction booklet or list of their definitions of space descriptions?

Mobilman44

I think Scott needs to put out a list of how to locate a stamp, where is that stamp, under what country???

I think (but I could be wrong) a lot of French colonies are not found alphabetically under that country, but under France, and I just spent a LOT of time, trying to figure out where to locate a stamp with:

KPJAJbeBCTBO CPbA XPBATA SRBA KRVATA SLOVENACA on it..
I tried under "K", under in the Scott catalog, tried Slovenia, Servia, even looked under the X section.. I am sooo not an expert and it is very frustrating... ... well, so if anyone has some sort of index / list of writing on a stamp and how to find it in the Scott catalog, I would pay good money for it!

Hi

In the back of a Scott catalog these is a abbreviated "Stamp Finder".

Amos Publishing, i.e. Scott, has "Linn's Stamp Identifier" and the APS has one also.

Jerry B

SueStamps,
As jbcev80 mentioned, the "linn's Stamp Identifier" would be a big help to you. I got a new one for about $11 and they are on ebay as well. In my view, this is a "must have" for any world wide collector.

I've also got Scott's postage stamp catalog (a 1955 set and a 2003 set)and they are a major help in determining the year of production - which tells me if it belongs in Scotts Part 1 or 2 or 3 album.

Mobilman44

re KPJAJbeBCTBO CPbA XPBATA SRBA KRVATA SLOVENACA
I expect you would find that stamp under Yugoslavia.

There are online stamp identifiers also, and older stamp books that may be cheaper at yard sales or flea markets or the thrift stores, etc. Or even ebay.

Perhaps also Google search AskPhil (Philatelist?).


Sue,
Perhaps SLOVENACA indicates Slovakia? Is it a newer stamp Sue?

Doug

Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes - listed in Stanley Gibbons under Yugoslavia, stamps from the 1920s.
(Nothing to do with Slovakia)

As for the descriptions, these generally follow whatever catalog was in force when the space was originally added to the album (or, less often, when a page was edited). This is why I think if you have a Volume I, it well worth finding a cheap copy of a Scott catalog from the early 1940s to help make sense of descriptions that don't match the current catalog.

As far as I know, Scott never published anything helpful about using the International albums. This is unlike Stanley Gibbons, that has very interesting prefaces in their Ideal albums. My favorite SG'ism is an admonition for collectors not to ruin their albums by mounting stamps anywhere but in the spaces provided. If you have stamps for which there are no spaces, go out and buy a SG blank album. Well, OK then.

Off topic, the most enigmatic descriptions are the symbols and abbreviations used in the Schaubek albums. For example, there is a special symbol for "Coloured impression on light coloured paper."

Great replies and thanks for the suggestion as I just placed an order for the "linn's Stamp Identifier" ! I am excited! I found the date online, but was hard for me to find the country in Scott catalog, I did look in the back of Scotts, says it was in volume six, but that was all it said, no country specified.

Here is the stamp I mentioned. After wondering around the local stamp store, I saw rows and columns FULL of what looked like the olden days in the library, those catalog drawers, the store had tons of them and all the 104 cards were indexed by country, cat #, price and that is how I am organizing my stamps now, no more binders:

One of the best identifiers I have ever used, and still use, was issued in the 1950s by Garcelon Stamp Co. It is priceless to me.

Donald