Scott To Minkus Country Location Info

Having collected in Minkus since 9 years old I am trying to find information on which countries in Scott coordinate with countries in Scott. With all of the different name changes of countries and Minkus vs. Scott designations for several different countries it becomes nearly impossible to determine how or where a country will appear when transferring a Scott collection to Minkus. To my knowledge Minkus never came up with a listing of where certain colonies, etc. could be found in their albums. Scott catalogues do. Am slowly making up a list but wondering if anyone else has access to a more complete list.
Thanks guys.

I'm confused about what the problem is that you're having. You say, "I am trying to find information on which countries in Scott coordinate with countries in Scott."

Do you mean that countries sometimes change their names? If that's what's confusing you, I don't really understand what that has to do with Scott vs. Minkus albums . . . ? But you can simply type up a name change list (Congo Free State - Belgian Congo - Congo - Zaire, for example). It shouldn't be hard. Use the internet when you're confused. Also, the Scott catalogues begin each country with an explanation of these name changes.

If you're transferring stamps from one brand of album to another, why wouldn't most countries have the same name in both albums?

And you say, "To my knowledge Minkus never came up with a listing of where certain colonies, etc. could be found in their albums." The albums are alphabetical by country names, so why is a list necessary? Germany comes after France, and so on.

One thing you can do is to look in the Scott catalogues and simply copy their country list which gives the catalogue volume where that country's stamps are located. But, again, if you're transferring stamps from Jamaica in one album, they would go to Jamaica in the other album, as well. Or am I not understanding the issue?

I understand what he is saying because I am going through a similar process of identifying what I have in my Minkus Global albums and using Scott catalogues. Basic countries are straight forward and alphabetical. However, where it becomes interesting is when you deal with former colonies of Great Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany, etc. In most cases in Minkus, these colonies followed the main country and when the name changed the pages continued in that area. So when you are physically trying to find a country alphabetically, an "A" country may not be in the "A" section of the album as it would in the Scott catalogue. To give a couple of examples Fezzan in Minkus follows France as a former colony/protectorate, but in Scott it is listed under Lybia. Another example is Aden-Seiyun, which for some reason did not appear in my Minkus under Aden, but later in the album under South Arabia. So it does require a bit of Googling to find where certain countries may be found in the albums.

To my knowledge Minkus did not create a TOC where the countries could be found showing a progress of country name changes. However, I stopped updating these albums after 1978 and something may have changed after that.

Minkus was always better at organizing stamps than Scott ever was, at least in my opinion. Whatever you think of they're massively overstuffed album pages (sigh), they refused to adhere to earlier silly practices, and you have to admire Minkus (Jacques and his whole company) for doing that.

The way he organized stamps within each country was chronologically. Period. I'll let that sink in for a moment. It seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? But Scott does not do that. Scott decided many generations ago that "types" of stamps (regular, semis, airs, and so on) matter just as much as chronology, so they put them on separate pages in separate sections of their albums. To me, that's just silly. So I rearrange all my Scott albums to be as chronological as I can get them. Obviously that's never going to be perfect (Scott sometimes puts air mails from 1935 on the same page as 1955), but I do my best.

Now I find out that they organize their countries better than Scott does! I'm doubly impressed. Of course, minor "protectorates" and tiny, unimportant outposts belong right after the main country, not somewhere lost in the weeds of the album elsewhere. Look through either the Scott Catalogue, as we've all done, or the Scott International album, and you'll find dozens of innocuous little former stamp-issuing places which you can't identify and don't know which country even owned them. Some consist of a single line or half a page of stamps only. It's bizarre in the extreme.

I'm convinced that the only reason U.S. collectors (this isn't done in most other stamp collecting countries!) assume these practices are normal and good is because that's all they've ever known. By all rights, air mail and semi-postal stamps issued by Belgium in the 1930s should be grouped on pages with other 1930s stamps. They will have similar designs about similar subjects. Makes all the sense in the world. And (at least minor) colonies belong after the main country that owned them, not somewhere else, for the same reason -- similar designs, similar subjects, and same stamp issuing country.

How do you deal with that? Education. You need to google confusing countries to see who they belonged to. I also do what I do to a country's pages to my entire album. In my Scott International, I move small colonies, city-states, and other territorial properties to the volume with the main country rather than leaving them volumes away.

Annnd, there's an absolutely wonderful book that will help explain where every territory in the whole world belongs and where it came from. It's called "The Stamp Atlas" by Raife Wellsted and Stuart Rossiter. I can't imagine collecting worldwide stamps without it.

https://www.amazon.com/Stamp-Atlas-...books&sr=1-1

Sorry if I confused someone with my question. I DID mean Scott vs Minkus. I can see that I am not the only one, however, who has had problems in getting country and their colonies' designations to match up. A special thanks to DrewM. I can't wait to get the Stamp Atlas. It very well may be t5he ticket to keeping me from going completely mad. Several providers are listed and I chose ThriftBooks. Have always had great luck and service from them. Generally if they say "Good" what you get is GOOD.

Drew M definitely hit the target about the Stamp Atlas. Not only is it an immense source of material but ordering it through Thrift Books was a no kidding smart move. Not only did the send me the book but it was an ex-library book the had only been checked out twice according to the date stamps on the checkout card but it was also protected by the plastic (?) book sleeve. As I said before they have done me right every time. Thanks again Drew Thrift Books.