What Stamp Products Do You Wish Were Manufactured -- Or Brought Back?

One of the editors at Linn's Stamp News has recently asked what stamp supplies should be brought back into production -- or made for the first time. I sent him some suggestions which included the one below. It would be interesting and might even be useful (f stamp publishers read these threads) to identify products you wish were manufactured. Here's one I wish were made.

I wish Scott/Amos sold a genuinely "small" International binder instead of their current small binder which is actually pretty large. Amos sells a second even more enormous binder which they call "Jumbo". But when that's filled with pages, it's an anchor. You can barely pick it up with two hands, and trying to remove it from a slipcase is a job and a half. If you ever drop it, good luck not destroying the binding. Even the smaller of the two binders is too big for comfort. I find it impossible to pick up the "small" binder with one hand when it's filled with pages. It's not very "small". Worse, in these enormous binders, the pages curve so dramatically that it's hard to even mount stamps on them. A smaller binder the size of the old medium-sized Specialty binder (about 2.5" wide) would be much more useful. That size International binder could be picked up more easily and would be much easier to use. They'd also sell more binders, and who could find fault with that? I'd buy a dozen or more.

At one time, Subway Stamp Shop manufactured and sold a smaller International binder. That's how I know they work so well.. They actually did exist. Subway sold their own version of the International binders that was identical to the Scott International binders except for the omission of the Scott Publishing name at the bottom of the spine. Same blue color, same silver title on the spine, almost indistinguishable from Scott's product. In fact, they may have been better than the Scott binder. The Subway version was a little higher quality, I thought. They seemed to use a heavier cloth that didn't rip at the spine. The paper that lined the inside of the covers was better. They cost less, too! Unfortunately, Subway no longer sells these binders -- rather sadly.

What was best about the Subway binders was that, besides selling the other sizes, they also offered this smaller size -- a 2.5" wide binder that you could actually pick up with one hand even when it was filled with pages. And it's small enough not to bend the pages much, so you can mount stamps more effectively. For me, that size is the ideal International album, better in every way. You do need more binders to hold the same number of pages, but it's worth it. Fortunately for me, some years ago, I bought 30 of the small Subway International binders. I wish I could buy more. That's my suggestion for a really good product to bring back -- a smaller 2.5" wide Scott (or Subway) International binder.

What are yours? Besides bringing back the original Dennison hinges, I mean!

A simple database, country by country.

Example:
Australia Just 3 columns

Scott number, value tablet, basic design (eg: bird -car-person etc)

One gets a bucket of stamps, sort Australians, search 'bird' and the results of every bird stamp date and scott number.
Would make sorting stamps a breeze.

Similar database each country.

Restraint. In the hundred years between 1840 and 1940, the Post Office issued five sets of commemoratives - fewer than twenty stamps. It probably manages that in a hundred hours now.

A scanner platen overlay to put stamps in so they can be scanned straight and square. Adjust overlay row height to fit stamp height, arrange stamps in overlay, place overlay on scanner.

Websites which offer free basic catalogs but offered additional advanced subscription-only search and filtering features. Paid advanced catalog for the specialized collectors.

A flatbed scanner which does normal scans and UV scans.

An online drag and drop album page maker using catalog numbers. Users simply build the list of stamps series they want to add, choose from various templates, then finalize the pages by customizing them by visually dragging and dropping. User save their own designs, best one offered to others. Ability to print their own online OR have the publishers print and drill them for delivery.
Don

An app (that works) for your phone to take a picture of your stamp and give an accurate perforation measurement

A single electronic philatelic device that does all of the following:

Both long- and short-wave UV

Watermark detection along the lines of a signoscope

Digital perforation gauging

LED magnifier, at least 7X, perhaps tethered to the power supply (no batteries)

Light box for normal perf gaguing (you'd put the stamp on the light field, then overlay a Gibbons-type perf gauge. The light box makes aligning the gauge against the perfs much more accurate). Light box is also useful for detecting thins, watermark anomalies, inclusions, etc.

Another want:

A universal convention that requires all stamp lots whether at traditional auction, ebay, Delcampe, HipStamps, dealer websites etc that standardizes short hand quality descriptions. For example,

Mint never hinged, never hinged mint, never hinged, mnh, nhm, nh, um, umm, unmounted mint would all be called "MNH" via a check box. Stamps with gum stains, loss, spots, oil marks, foxing, toning, rusting, sweating, etc would all require additional clarification indicating the nature of the disturbance. I realize that standard, short-hand nomenclature can be very difficult to achieve however at least in North American such a system exists for numismatics.

How about a compendium which cross references Scott and Stanley Gibbons catalog numbers.

Jack Kelley

Dennison hinges.

A flatbed scanner which does normal scans and UV scans.

Now ~THAT~ Don is something I could really go for!

I just bought some Dennisen hinges. Lucky me !

"I just bought some Dennisen hinges. Lucky me !"

You probably just misspelled it, but in case anyone doesn't know, note that there is an alternate brand sold sometimes on ebay with that spelling which is not the real deal. Dennison (with an "o") is the real one. I'm not sure who makes (or made) the other one, but I assume they were trying to capitalize on Dennison's name and good reputation . . . ?

I make my own printable catalogue number checklists by country so I have a record of which stamps I own and which I need to buy. Catalogue makers, to my knowledge, do not offer this option. For the U.S., for example, why doesn't Scott offer a simplified, cheap online way to print #1-4000+ on as few sheets of paper as possible? This would be something you could carry to stamp shows or use when buying online. A purely digital checklist is fine in its own way, and that sort or record keeping could be included in this (maybe for an extra fee you could click each number and see the image of the stamp, and so on). But simple paper-printable lists with only year dates, marked by sets, maybe with a key identifying word for each would make this appeal to a wider range of collectors who like to keep it very simple, and who still like to mark on actual paper with a pen or pencil. Since catalogue makers own their numbers and what they represent, I don't think anyone else can sell such checklists.

For US stamps, printable checklists are here http://stampsmarter.com/features/Ch...istHome.html
Don

Without any doubt, Dennison's ... I haven't felt another product leave a lasting impression ....

Don, that is one amazing group of U.S. checklists! I am very impressed. As a list accessible by laptop or cellphone, that is excellent.

But . . . what I need is different, just the bare bones, a list printable on as few sheets of paper as possible of numbers -- grouped by years with maybe one key word next to each number or set where needed.

Hauling multiple sheets of paper listing every country I collect to stamp shows is like carrying a small library. I'd like to have all U.S. stamps (and stamps of the 20 other countries I collect) listed on a very few sheets of paper. I've made a few simple lists, and I can get maybe 440 numbers on a single page even if I leave space after each number for a word. Or for "used - unused" symbols. That would require less than 10 pages (5 sheets of paper printed both sides) to list all 4,000 U.S. stamps. My own lists would be even better with "used-unused" symbols, year dates, and a key word or two identifying each set, but that's awfully fiddly and time-consuming to do for every country I collect. You'd think the catalogue publishers would want to sell such lists to collectors?

Wow! finally someone whom thinks like I do.

Then again, the problem with what database?
I like the bare bones MSWorks
A 2 second database with max 35,000 records.

Modern databases are going to be Excel?

Yes, you can get a lot more rows of stamps on a page if you do not use images. But I found that most users want images of each stamp in a checklist.

I have the database needed to allow users to select just the stamps they want to add, and I originally wrote the code to do just that. It had very powerful features to allow the searching AND filtering of the list. It had every US stamp, including BOB, so this means users have to page through over 7000 stamps selecting the ones they wanted to add to their list. If I break it up, users have to page through over 4000 stamps of just the regular issues.

But I went ahead to implemented it that way and the response was underwhelming. It required patience and a fair amount of knowledge/skill to work the tools that filter and search for the stamps you want. Two or three hobbyists out of ten were able to use the tool well, the rest needed support. Support is very costly. I am one person working without a budget.

My point here is that while this thread is fun for dreaming, the critical missing context is what are people willing to pay for the things that would like to see. As a group, we do not like to spend money on non-stamp stuff. As a group, we are ummmm...'thrifty'.

The very first thing anyone does in developing a new product is calculate the ROI. Return On Investment includes NRE costs. Non-Recurring Engineering includes the one-time costs to research, design, develop and test a new product. I ate all these costs and still end up with a tool which was not well accepted, so I changed it to something that was far easier to use. But imagine trying to pitch spending $50k to $100k to a company for some of these ideas...before you even have sold a single thing. I spent 25 years in the 'Shark Tank' of technology development projects, on both sides of this equation; I have pitched development projects and I have financed development projects. Justifying spending the time and money on this stuff is very, very difficult.

In terms of the current Stamp Smarter checklist, if users do not need or want multiple pages they can easily use the print function to print only the specific pages they need.
Don