What's With Scott Publishing Company And Their Catalogues?

Since I've returned to stamp collecting (for about 10 years now) there's been a nasty habit I've noticed with Scott catalogs that wasn't a problem years ago, namely, that they value many more recent issues only as complete sets.

For instance, today I looked up two pairs of stamps from Saint Thomas & Prince Island, numbered as 460-463, and only found a tentative (italicized) value for the complete set, that is, 450-463 - $27.50.

What's even more puzzling is why the inconstancy in not listing these pairs together, is issued, along with the separate items. For example, 461a and 463a as the conjoined pairs? Or even used one of their more recent, more confusing system of listing (though the numbers would have bumped up) as 461, 461A, 462, 462A?

For a company that finds all sorts of minute color variations by which to price some stamps -- subjective color name 'descriptions' that it fails to back up with a hard, objective color key so that we can all know what they're talking about, this kind of lack of value guidance seems to me as lazy and inexcusable!

Does this kind of thing get anyone else upset enough to comment about it?

Yes. There used to be a separate catalog primarily for "classic" stamps that priced them by grade which used to cost about $20.00. Someone at Scott, with evil genius, came up with the idea of discontinuing it and including it as a section of the main Specialized Catalog of United States Stamps and Covers. I personally refer to this section as the "yellow pages" because the edges of the pages are yellow.

This catalog costs $99.00 until iHobb.com comes up with a special where you can usually get it for $69.00. I think that's what I paid for it. Scott makes an extra $50.00 off me.


-IBFS

This annoys me to the point that I would like to create my own catalog.

They value only complete sets of more recent sets to save space/reduce costs as there are a huge number of sets being released worldwide, and they are mostly only sold as full sets.

Probably a good reason why world wide collectors prefer Stanley Gibbons as where Scott's is best for the US.

Or Michel (though I'm not sure if I like Michel's current practice of making the catalogues 'thinner' and spanning the content to multiple volumes. Right now a worldwide collector like me needs to acquire 30+ volumes to cover the world; in the 1990s all was covered with only 15 'heavy' volumes).

A few remarks to that: right now there are at least 30 more stamp issuing countries and when the Soviet Union collapsed it was replaced with 15 separate countries that all had the same stamp policy ("more is better!") while most other countries increased the number of stamps per year dramatically. Take for instance Japan, with all the Furusato/prefectural stamps: in 1990 Michel had catalogued 2000 stamps, but in 2009 the counter was at 5000 major numbers, not including stamp sheets and perforation differences...

For now this seems to be the best plan of attack.
Tom

Here is a thread on this subject from 2011, with a few more thoughts:

https://goscf.com/t/11708

...and a few old friends who are no longer around...

Heavy ! Real heavyweights in that thread.
Cjd...thanks for the memories !

"Does this kind of thing get anyone else upset enough to comment about it" It only tells me that there are collectors who don't understand the functions of the Scott catalog and have a misunderstanding of the retail market place ..........lets first cover the catalog issue .......Scott catalog gets its pricing, that they publish from dealer price listings and from retail listings that are on line .If the stamps are only listed and priced as a complete set that is how the catalog prices them .Nobody goes around looking for a middle stamp from a set of stamps ,if they buy it then it is the whole set, complete ......On the second point ,it is odd to find a person willing to buy a modern incomplete set, most dealers price all the modern stuff that are incomplete sets as junk and sold in large lots with a price of around two cents each ,so for those of you still working with all that modern broken sets and recent stuff {after the 1970's } just price it as 2 cent a stamp. Forget about pricing to a fraction of the price of a complete set .

What seems strange to me with Scott's is that they will list some stamps that are paired with a label in between and list it at less than two separate singles of the same stamps. For example, two singles listed at 20 cents apiece, compared to an intact pair listed with a label in between listed at 30 cents (?) This doesn't make sense.

With this in mind, you would think it would be advantageous for a collector, so inclined, to separate them and trade / sell as singles, not that I am in favour of this.

You would also think that, for some issues anyway, it would be harder to get joined label-in-between pairs nicely used?? This puts a whole new meaning to the statement, 'eliminating the middle man'.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Can you give me a name of a company that deals with these 2 cent stamps?
Tom

Sure .........Almost every major stamp auction firm has one or two lots that they list near the end of a auction catalog . These lots are worldwide modern issues with many still in the original glassines. The price of the lot usually will come to about 2 cents per stamp and contain hundreds if not thousands of complete sets. Those that contain full mint sheets of modern stamps sell for much less than 2 cents each . Last year Regency Stamp Auctions had a APS consignment lot which they were handling for free .The lot got no bids ,so I threw in the opening bid to get it going ,but with no other bids ,I ended up with the lot of about 80 lbs of new issues for $100.00 plus $18.00 for the house . I have no clue what to do with them ,they have been sitting on the floor in a wharehouse behind my skidloader trailer for about 15 months .Yes they go cheap.

Yes, but that is a non-sequitur as it relates to your original comment.

".........worldwide collectors prefer Stanley Gibbons.........." Not this world wide collector. I've checked Gibbons catalogs a few times over the years and have found them to be more overpriced than the Scott catalogs. Also, they tend to break down countries into far more catalogs than Scott.

I think the eventual best solution is to be able to buy on demand. As an example, if I want current pricing for A through B countries, just through 1965, why should I have to pay for issues & prices after 1965.