Palestine, Mandate Overprints: Problem With Scott's Descriptions?

Has anyone else noticed that Scott's descriptions of the overprints are seriously misleading? For the second Jerusalem printing (1920-21) Scott displays and describes only the Arabic line and says "'..'at left extends above other letters." The Arabic does indeed have a small dot-like mark at the left and it does extend above the other letters. For the last Jerusalem printing (1921) Scott again displays and describes only the Arabic line, but now "'..' at left even with other letters." But I have a stamp of this printing that has the dot-like mark at the left of the Arabic line extending above the other letters. Anomaly? No! The ".." at the left is in fact found in the Hebrew line of the overprint. I puzzled over this stamp for quite a while before https://www.zobbel.de/stamp/pal_19e.htm set me straight. Maddening that an authoritative reference such as Scott should include what seems an outright error, and to have repeated it in every issue for at least twenty years. (Or has Scott corrected its mistake since publishing its Classics 2013 volume?)

Why not contact Scott directly yourself?

It would be better if Scott simply clearly illustrated the difference between the overprints. I wouldn't be surprised if a earlier edition of the catalog did, in fact, illustrate them fully -- Scott is a general catalogue, and they've removed a lot of illustrations from a lot of countries over the years, in order to save space.

Besides wanting to save space, there were also many illustrations that were removed when they switched to color, because they didn't have a clean example to photograph.

Contact Scott directly? I should. Wonder if they'd take any notice.

If no one tells or challenge's them, no change will ever be made!

If you are at all serious about collecting Palestine (and I would say you are if you are distinguishing the different printings) then you should collect according to the Bale catalog. Or at least use it as a guide. I have the one pictured here, from 1978, but I think there are newer ones, too.

Other than United States stamps, Scott never planned to be the expert guide. So you shouldn't expect that they will be.
As your collection grows, consider publishing the information yourself as a guide to others.

I have over 600 pages from my collection posted on my website - including the Palestine Mandate pictorial issues based on the Bale-Zodiac catalog. Visit my home page link below if you want to see the pages.

KGVIStamps...

Plz post link to your pages. Am curious to review.

Thanks.

EMaxim...

Thanks for starting a very interesting thread. Although Palestine has not been a personal collecting focus, like you I've found Scott's description of Mandate overprints both confusing and incomplete. So if you decide to advise Scott of the catalogue discrepencies I hope you will advise SCF readers of the outcome/response.

Thanks also for sharing the link to the Zobbel site. What a wealth of information contained therein. Last night read two entries which include info which I can immediately utiilize. The first is "Easy sorting guide to Palestine Mandate overprints" which utilizes a "conditional logic" approach (aka " branch logic").

The second is an article by David K Smith entitled, "Starting a Palestine collection today — A beginners guide".

Jim in SoCal

Thanks to you all. I'll hunt for the Bale-Zodiac catalogue and will definitely write to Scott. To be incomplete is understandable (inevitable); to mislead is not.
Eric

I did not include a link in my post because it is already located in my signature.
My website URL is the same as my username in this forum.

You can probably find a copy of the Bale catalog on ebay. I bought my copy there. Otherwise there are some philatelic book sellers you might have it.

Found several copies of Bale online thru Google search (none on ebay). Cheapest, however, was $50 plus $4 shipping. Ouch!

Yup, specialty philatelic catalogues are expensive.

Agree, nothing (currently) on ebay matches your query.

Recommend trying APRL, Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library, and Western Philatelic Library. (In that order.)

Unless you are in a rush they do come up reasonably priced on ebay every now and again.
I found my 1988 edition of the Bale Stamps of Palestine Mandate for US$12 on ebay a few months back.

Another alternative, if you are looking for even more detail than the Bale, is "The Stamps & Postal Stationery of Palestine Mandate 1918-1948" by David Dorfman. There is one currently listed on ebay for US$36.50

If you don't require the level of specialisation offered by the aforementioned catalogues, the Stanley Gibbons Commonwealth and Empire Catalogue does a good job with a reasonable number of varieties.
Clive