Looking For A Michel I Can Read !

Does Michel Cat publish in English or French ?? I know some Vol have been translated but if you want the World !

Thnks

As far as I know, Michel only offers its Germany catalogue in English translation, and I don't think that it publishes a simplified set of world catalogues of the Gibbons type.

GeoffHa - that means what ? English Michel cats exist ?
Thanks and Happy New Year !

In addition to the English version of the Germany catalog (which is equivelent only to a subset of the full Michel Deutschland-Spezial catalog), they do publish catalogs for other specialized areas in English or as bi-lingual German/English or German/French catalogs.
See http://www.briefmarken.de/michelsho...ign-language for a listing.

But as GeoffHa says, not for the entire world.

I would say, however, that the basic listings in the German language catalogs are pretty easy for even a mono-lingual person as myself to understand. For footnotes and other text, I often use Google translate.

It means that its catalogue for Germany exists in an English translation, but that its others don't.

WOPA has these at the moment..
http://wopa-stamps.com/index.php?co...x&loc=MICHEL

Germany Specialized Catalogue 2015/2016, Vol. 2 - in English
Germany Specialized Catalogue 2016, Vol. 1 – in English
Nordeuropa 2007/2008 in englischer Sprache

A few months ago WOPA had special offers of older versions of the two German Specialised catalogues available at much reduced prices but I don't know if they are still available.

P.S. I think Michel does English versions of the Gulf States catalogues plus a French version of Lichtenstein.

Thanks for the help - I wish to get the entire catalogues...........I am a WW collector - No buying Volumes for me. Much appreciated-

Renden - I was also a bit reluctant to jump into Michel due to the language barrier. I have had Michel now for a few months, and I soon realized that the language is actually not much of a challenge - except as stated above - for footnotes etc, However Google translate is a brilliant tool, as already stated by ekbustad. I even jumped at the Sassone catalog - which I expected to give me quite some challenges with the Italian language. After a few days with google translate, one quickly pick up and recognize the key words - and basically a few key words is sufficient to understand what the listings are about, as an experienced collector you will intuitively understand a lot only based on a few key words. Filigrana capovolta - inverted watermark! (Italian)
Best of luck with Michel!

Thanks Blaamand and other friends.....I shall explore and try to get the WW volumes, not necessarily 2016 !

From time to time Michel does have sales where they provide older editions with 30-60% discounts (sometimes with free postage). Just subscribe the Michel newsletter, and you'll be among the first to know of such offers.

Also a lot of European auction houses sell 5-10 year old editions of Michel regularly with somewhat cheap prices. Of course once you add postage etc. fees the cheap price might easily become equal to buying a new edition locally. Buying from Germany and other 'cheap postage' countries can easily save you 20-30$ worth on single purchase.

-k-

Renden

If your plan is to buy individual country or area catalogues, I'm sure it makes sense to use Michel for Germany and some other European countries. But for GB and Commonwealth, Gibbons would be preferable, and for France and the French area, Maury or Yvert.

Geoff

In general, as Blaamand notes, it's not too difficult to discern the most important info in a specialized catalog that is not in your native tongue. Between similar vocabulary for many terms and gooogle translate, most collectors should be able to make good use of them.

More difficult for Westerners are the catlalogs that use other scripts. For me catalogs in cyrillic are not too hard since I am comfortable with the alphabet. My new JSDA catalog for Japan 1871-1945 however is a bit more difficult beyond gleaning the basics like perf varieties and color shades, as the footnotes are all in Japanese, which I am illiterate at.

You might also do a Google search for Michel Stamp Catalogues. An Introduction to English-speaking readers.