Michel, Stanley Gibbons And Scott...

So, as of last night, I have now had the opportunity to play with the Scott, Michel and Stanley Gibbons and Scott Catalogs. When I have a chance to get into more detail, I will, but here is my $0.02.

In my humble opinion, Michel's numbering system is by far the best. Looking at a Michel number, you can easily tell if a number indicates a perf variety, a color difference, paper variety, or a small design change like a microprint. Also, every stamp gets a unique number and souvenir/miniature sheets get their own distinct number.

Stanley Gibbons seems to have the best layout, at least for me. I don't know why, but I just find stuff faster in the SG catalog.

I have always considered Scott to be a bit of a mess. It's usable, but their numbering system leaves a lot to be desired.

For the curious, I'm using Michel for Ukraine, Stanley Gibbons for Ireland, and Scott for US.

I've gotten a lot of recommendations to use Hibernian for Ireland, and I considered it. But most of the eBay/bidStart listing use either Scott or SG, so the Hiberbian numbers didn't add a lot of value for me.

I bought the Scott pages for Ukraine from CHRIROKMD, and, after seeing Miche's listing, I found a lot of stuff was missing. Microprint varieties were merely footnoted on a lot of definitives, where Michel gave them numnbers. It's much better to know the exact number of microprint varieties, rather than a vague footnote stating that "microprint varieites are known to exist."

Hi apastuszak,

Thanks for this well written (easy to understand) and very informative comparison to the different catalogs!

Now I know!

I live in the United States so I use Scott Catalogues for all countries.

If I lived in Britain I would use Stanley Gibbons.

If I lived in Germany I would use Michel.

What I would NOT do us use a different catalogue for each of the hundred countries I collect!!

I may supplement with another catalogue but I would never entirely change to it's numbering system.

For Ukraine, I have no choice. Scott is horrible. I have discovered at least a half dozen Ukrainian stamps I didn't even know existed. Which, of course will lead to page corrections, which pisses off people that have already downloaded and printed pages.

I got Stanley Gibbons for Ireland, because a good 75% of the eBay/bidStart auctions I was looking at listed with SG numbers. I was also making 1998 catalog pages for Ireland, and I couldn't make heads or tails out of the Ireland Bird Definitives. I then got my Stanley Gibbons in the mail and almost all the 1998 bird definitives just made sense all of the sudden!

Something all catalog makers need to do is list stamps by year properly.

For example MICHEL 116 has two perf varieties, 116A and 116B.



116A is 11 3/4 x 12 1/4 and came out on 5/28/1994
116C is 14 x 13 3/4 and was released in January 1999

The two stamps are listed together in the 1994 section of the catalog, since they're same design.

The stamp issued in 1999 should be in the 1994 section, so you know that style had multiple varieties AND also be in the 1999 section. That way, if I am in the 1999 section of the catalog and want to know all the stamps that came out that year, I don't need to go flipping through all the previous year to confirm I have them all.

My main focus right now is the German area and Scott is a mess, with stuff scattered across all 6 volumes, confusing numbering of varieties, etc. I don't own a Michel catalog yet, but I plan on buying one within the next year or so. I'll still continue to use Scott since that's what most US dealers use, but for Germany, regardless of what country one lives in, Michel is the gold standard. My knowledge of German is rudimentary (to put it mildly), but my understanding is that the philatelic terms (colors, watermarks, perforations, etc) aren't too difficult to pick up on. Explanatory text in German would probably be a different story, but there is always Google Translate if all else fails.

MICHEL has a guide for English speaking readers that helps explain their numbering system. All you really need is a translation list of colors in German and English.

I took 4 years of German in high school, bu that was 25 years ago.

My father however grew up in Germany, and Ukraine. He's a walking German dictionary. If I need anything translated, I take a pic, email it to him and he calls me.

Apastuszak,

I agree completely with your analysis of the catalogues. Michel is far superior. And since they only produce a couple of catalogs in English, I have been working hard to acquire a working knowledge of German (something I should have done long ago, anyway!)

I took German in high school and it's still hard. Luckily most of the German you need to know are the names of colors. MICHEL's numbering system just makes so much sense to me.

Gibbons for British Commonwealth, Scott for USA, Michel for Germany, Fischer for Poland. Each of these companies specializes in stamps from their home turf so I think you have to go for those. For the rest of the world I use whatever I've acquired over the years, 20 year old catalogues at a couple of bucks apiece from stamp fairs, clubs etc. are just fine for me.

For an all-rounder rest of the world then it would have to be Michel for it's detail. My high school German was 50 years ago and fortunately I speak Polish - having a second European language makes it much easier to pick up on what's happening in the other countries either from their stamps or catalgues.

I agree with your assessment of the merits of Michel vs Scott. I prefer Michel numbering and layout.

Scott specialized is necessary for US and adequate for English only collectors for non specialized world wide collections I use it regularly to conduct non specialized activities, but it's merely adequate for some areas I specialize in, such as Central Europe. It does not have sufficient detail or it's confusing for Hungary, Switzerland, Germany, etc. Specialized country catalogs may also reference Michel numbering (e.g., Magyar Posta catalogue).

If I were a general world wide collector I wouldn't worry too much about it. But since I started specializing in a few countries I found it prudent to acquire the best catalogue for the job, regardless of the language difficulties.

Agreed. I'm not a specialist, at least not yet. The main reason I use a catalog, any catalog, is so I know what stamps are out there and their approximate value. Scott does a decent job of that, even if their layout can be a bit challenging at times. And there are times when their layout can make things a bit easier. For any given country's back of the book issues, if you know it's a semipostal, postage due, official, airmail, etc, it does provide a smaller slice of the catalog in which to find your stamp, which can make finding it easier. I have Steiner pages printed for about 30 countries and I don't know how many hours I've spent trying to find something in the catalog in vain. At least BOB issues are pretty easy to find in the catalog, even if you don't know what year they were issued.

I wonder if it's possible for another catalog to "take over" in the US. If MICHEL translated their catalogs into English and offered them for sale in the US at significantly cheaper price point than Scott, would they gain any traction? Could Stanley Gibbons?

I think they COULD. It would be a huge uphill fight, however. It would seem to me to be the challenge would be to get the dealers on board and get them to switch from using one catalog vs the other. A very easy way to convert (I think of show dealers - that's a lot of cards to be renumbered) perhaps through a free inventory and POS system?

It would be nice if Michel issued complete and fullly translated English versions of their catalogs, but I doubt they'd be cheaper than Scott as their catalogs are typically higher than Scott now. It would be a huge uphill battle getting people to convert. Not only would you have to get dealers and collectors on board, but most albums used in the US are laid out according to Scott. Someone my age (44) could have purchased a Scott album last month and I'd be using it for (hopefully) another 30-40 years, and having to order stamps by Michel would be aggravating and/or confusing to say the least. While anything is possible given enough time, like it or now, we're stuck with Scott here in the US, certain specialties notwithstanding.

How old is MICHEL vs Scott? I wonder if catalog makers learn from the mistakes of other catalog makers when it came to setting up their numbering system.

Scott's considerably older. If Wikipedia is correct, it dates to 1868. The first Michel catalog was published in 1910.