Older Michel Catalogs Vs New Ones

I have a problem that makes me scratch my bolding head.

For years, I used older (published in before-Euro times) Michel specialized catalogs for Germany and Austria.

About four years ago I bought new editions of these catalogs, with values given in Euro, and, being a person of rather magnanimous character, immediately gave away my older copies to other collectors.

Soon after that, I've noticed that some valuable information, contained in older Michel catalogs, has disappeared from new ones.

In particular, older Michel Deutschland Special catalog listed, in introductions to every German State (such as Baden, Bavaria, etc.) numeral postmark numbers, sorted by degrees of their rarity.

To my vexation, I discovered that this information disappeared in recent editions of Michel Germany Specialized catalog.

Older Michel Specialized catalog of Austria listed detailed values for many different perforation and paper varieties of 19th-century Austrian stamps, and I sorted these stamps in my collection using this information.

In the new edition of Michel Österreich Spezial, again to my rather extreme disappointment, all information about rare perforation varieties disappeared (remain only several major groups of perforations).

Also, separate listings for paper varieties disappeared, being replaced by the small-print note saying something like "specialists distinguish at least three different types of paper used while printing these issues."

Really? If I buy a specialized catalog, I would expect it to contain information that is important to a specialist collector!

Does anybody know, why Michel reduced so much the volume of information in their catalogs? Is it because of some copyright conflicts with experts who publish and sell their own detailed catalogs?

I know that there is a separate specialized catalog of old German postmarks (expensive, and difficult to find), and that there is Dr. Ferchenbauer's two-volume, luxurious, rather insanely detailed catalog of classic Austrian stamps (also fantastically expensive).

Are these editions, targeting rich collectors, the reason that somewhat more generalized but very useful information has been removed from the new editions of Michel Specialized catalogs?

One more mystery: the last edition (2004) of the best Italian catalog of Old Italian States (CEI, Catalogo Enciclopedico Italiano), and the only one that gives valused of Old Italian States' stamps in Euro, is IMPOSSIBLE to find.

This is not an exaggeration. I see on Internet that even Italian collectors cannot buy it anywhere. I've been looking for it for years, with no success. It seems that some powerful competitor (I suspect Sassone) bought up all available copies to remove them from the market! There is no newer CEI edition in print, and publishers do not answer to inquiries. That's bloody strange.

(I've heard that sometimes bona fide wars fire up between competing stamp catalog publishers. In Russia, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, there were rumors that Solovyev, the editor of the popular specialized catalog of Russian stamps, had to hide, fearing for his life, because Zagorsky's people from St. Petersburg were trying to kill him. This is no more than a hearsay, of course, but, being Russian and knowing well Russian business practices, I am ready to velieve it.)

If anybody knows anything about these matters, please, tell me!

I never used so many emoticons before; please, forgive me this sudden urge to entertain myself.

WRT Michel,I think this was done for a couple reasons, the primary one being space. Additionally, I think Michel recognized that there were more speciailized references available, and just chose to refer readers to those instead. Not sure I agree with that approach, but I get it. If you're looking for online references to replace the omitted Nummernstempel info, try here.

For the Italian catalog, try unilibro.

PostmasterGS,

Thank you for links!

Your guess is as good as mine.

The little I know of current Michel editors and the way they work, the most likely option is that the information no longer is accurate´/verifiable and as such removed (either permanently or temporarily). It might be so because the specialized society that provides and maintains the data no longer wants to share it (at least free), or alternatively new research is in progress (but you might still have to wait a number of years for the results). Some of the changes are also 'editorial improvements' - to make catalog more consistent, lighter and cheaper.

You might want to try to ask the editors through Michel's forum at http://forum.briefmarken.de/
(sometimes they respond very slowly to questions, so don't panic if nothing happens in day or two, or week).

-k-

PostmasterGS,

I ordered CEI 2004 Antichi Stati from Unilibro. They wouldn't accept my Visa (this happens sometimes because of the fraud protection on American side — to resolve this, I would have to call the American bank that issued my Visa card, and ask them to process an European order, which would be bothersome). So I paid via Paypal.

However! Unilibro site warns (in Italian) that this item is difficult to get, and for that reason there may be lengthy delays. I suspect that they, like many other book sellers, offer anything that has been published but actually don't have this catalog, and that in the end they will tell me that they cannot find it. It happened before: I tried to order theis catalog from Italy three times already.

In any case, thank you for your help.

scb,

I'll ask Michel some questions, thank you for the link.
I suspect they will give one of your explanations — which wouldn't make my life easier, because I loved to sort Franz-Josef definitives by perforations and paper types... and now I don't have my old Austria Specialized Michel.

This is why I am hanging on to my 1980 Michel Specialized!

Your use of emogees kept me engaged, to read your whole post - which was interesting on its own merit.

Maybe I'll have to start using more of them.

I don't believe most of the information that Michel expels from its catalogs is inaccurate. From what I have seen, and from my recollection, most of the information they delete is very specialized and (to me) very useful, at times. It seems to come and go...it may be there for several years, and then it disappears.

I think ekbustad has the right approach. Photocopying information you want to keep before you sell an old Michel catalog is a good idea. I have to confess, I have not done this.

I see that the unilibro link for CEI has the following warning:

"The availability of this product is uncertain. This means that the supplier has not removed the product from the catalog, but that the warehouse stocks are close to zero."

nigelc,

Yes, and that means that they, most probably, wouldn't be able to get it.
What is going to happen with my Paypal payment now? I wonder.