State-Of-The-Art Catalogue?

Hi everyone. This is my very first post ever!

I haven't been collecting since I was a little kid, but I think I'm finally going to be getting back into it (I'm now in my fifties). I have many questions I hope you'll be able to help me with. I'll try to separate them into separate threads.

First, I had the impression when I was a kid that the Scott Catalogues were THE reference book at that time. Is it still the most widely accepted reference for checking prices, etc? When people talk about catalog numbers, are they almost always referring to Scott's? (I should say that I am mostly interested in US, Canadian, and Japanese stamps.)

Also, is there any reason why you'd prefer online catalogs over hard copies, or vice versa?

Looking forward to hearing everyone's opinions. Thanks!

In short, Scott is still the basic reference. Don't know when you last picked up a Scott catalog, but Scott is now a net price catalog based on condition, which they give in their intro section. That said, there's a greater range of pricing far above and way below their levels based on condition. Also, they still are always up to at least a year out of date, so take their pricing as a guideline, not law.

You'll find a lot of Canada collectors are using the Unitrade catalog since it has much more detail than Scott.

Physical Scott catalogs are large and pretty heavy nowadays. I'd prefer the CD-ROM version but the prices don't drop on them like older/used Scotts do. You might check out the price of a new set of Scotts somewhere but prepare yourself for sticker shock. Thankfully, public libraries mostly still keep up and have the newest in their reference sections.

Last but not least, welcome to the forum!

EDIT: Here's a discussion on what if Scott had an e-version:
https://goscf.com/t/55319

Scott is the "standard" for US collectors because we typically use the Scott Catalogue numbering system to identify stamps. The pricing in the catalogue is a reference. Some dealers use it like a price list but as stated you can purchased well below and above the price. Condition is everything so prices vary by condition/grading.

I would double check seller's claims about a catalogue value. They may list a stamp and say Cat. Value $50. But the stamp they have list is not VF condition and not NH so they really quoted the wrong value.

I would like to see a good online catalogue. One drawback of popular worldwide catalogues is that they cannot show the images of all stamps. An online one should not have this issue. Stampworld.com can help identify stamps.

Welcome to the forum JPR.

What is the difference in prices between the 2009 Scott catalog and the 2017 one?

Thanks for the welcome! And for the information and good advice about the pricing.

In the link that hy-brasil posted, I can see that many here are upset about the lack of functionality of the online catalogues. But I notice that you can highlight and add notes, so I suppose you could use them as a kind of checklist if you wanted to. Other than needing an internet connection then, aren't they preferable to the heavy hard copies?

I use only the cd-rom Scott. You can search it in minutes whereas the hard copies would take you much longer to search.

BTW..Welcome to the Forum...

Also, depending on why you want the catalog, age can be a factor. If it is for identification only, an older set is sufficient. In my case, I used Scott just for ID and to make want lists, so the 2009 set, which was $25 for the whole set, is more than sufficient to meet my needs.

Thanks again for the welcomes and the info.

Another novice question about Scott's: I notice that there are two numbers for each entry. For example, the US Albert Einstein commemorative is (was?) listed as, "1774 a1163". Which of these is the important one that everyone refers to? Thanks.

The first number is the Scott number. This is how it is identified. The second number is the design number for aid in identification since stamps often have a common designs so two different Scott numbers can have the same design number.