When Buying, How Important Are Catalog(Ue) Numbers To You In Listings?

Here is an example for total ebay sales by geography for 2014.



Ideally we would have access to the number of stamp catalogs (hardcopy and digital) sold by each major publisher, but obviously this data is not available to us.

But I think it could be argued that the largest percentage of ebay sales comes from US folks. And the most widely used catalog in the US is Scott.
Don

Don's analysis looks to provide a good rule of thumb -- use the catalog that is predominately used by your target geographic market (e.g., if the US is your target market, use Scott #s, if it is the UK, use SC #s, etc.) However, if you are targeting a specialized collecting market likely you would want to use the corresponding catalog for that material (i.e., specialized Germany = Michel #s). In a perfect world, you would list material with all relevant catalog #s, how to pare that down to something tractable is left as an exercise for the reader.

YMMV.

Since over half of my sales are international I've found it best to include a description of the stamp(s) in each listing beyond that of a catalog number. I'll include the stamps topic(s), perforation sizes, watermarks or anything else that helps separate it from similar stamps. A potential buyer would be able to catalog the stamp themselves regardless of what catalog one uses. Since I also sell mostly covers, the stamp and it's catalog number is only one piece of many pieces on information to be included in a description. In many cases it's the least important piece of information as a cover many have many other better selling points or a factor like the stamp's watermark maybe unobtainable without having to remove the stamp from the cover. I also might not bother with catalog numbers with larger groups of covers with minimum value stamps - not worth the time.

If a seller lists mostly what I would call 'mainstream' material (not specialized) then it might be enough to pick one catalog. (Since few sellers would want to spend time/money digging out multiple catalog numbers.)

But if the material being offered is more specialized, especially if it is higher quality, then it would probably be wise to list it using more than a single catalog number.
Don

dkabq8,

What you say makes sense, but if I am looking at an SG identified stamp, I would also like to know what the corresponding SC number are as well. Rod222 helped me out immensely in determining specific Australian definatives.

Jack Kelley

Here are some pod-casts that you might find useful:

http://stampshowheretoday1.podbean....-collecting/

http://stampshowheretoday1.podbean....-collecting/

This is exactly why I usually watch sellers rather than searching by catalog#. I collect the German area, and sellers also commonly list by Michel. You'll also have results from any of the dozens of entities in the German area turn up as well. If I search for Germany 25, for example, the search results may also pull up results for Danzig 25, Bavaria 25, Memel 25, Upper Silesia 25, etc, as well as Michel# 25 for those areas or anything with $25 in the title, etc. Far easier just to watch some sellers who regularly carry the stamps I'm looking for.

It's much easier to find specific stamps on ebay Germany. They have the German area split into dozens of sub-categories and the use of Michel is universal. If I search by Michel# in the right category, the search results are highly relevant, with very little "chaff" in the results.

I have a very specialized area of interest, so it is sufficient for me to browse new listings every day and look for photos. If I were to do a broad retrospective search, however, it would be essential to have the catalog numbers in the listings (Scott, in my case).

I absolutely depend on US Scott numbers. I'll miss the stamp if it isn't there.