Amos Publicationa To Offer Gibbons Products

https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamp...lic-supplies

None currently listed. I assume there may be supply issues right now with geting adequate stock to sell. This sounds to be a similar deal to their selling Schaubek; Only the more epensive hingeless albums will be carried.

They're expensive, but ... assuming available funds, there's nothing comparable in terms of quality and coverage for British Empire/Commonwealth. I imagine that Amos will want shipping rates to fall before it (re-) stocks them,

Agreed- I own sets of the New Age and George VI albums, also a two volume bound set of the old 'New Imperial' album. I doubt I will ever upgrade to the newer volumes from the old Imperial; even the non hingeless editions of George V and Edward VII would set me back over a thousand. Then there's the forever forthcoming Victoria volumes. Those will not be cheap.

I have the bound Imperials - very sparsely populated, sadly. But, for those who can afford higher end stamps, as many of the issues are, you're in the "Ferrari but no garage" area. The QEII albums don't really work for me because of the artificial cut-off date of 1962, and I'm gradually shifting my stamps to quadrille.

I assume Amos is trying to increase revenue. They purchased Minkus previously and guess not interested in White Ace. Are there US supply places that sell SG albums, etc?

A guess is that Gibbons materials will be, at best, a small niche market for Amos. I have several old, bound, Gibbons Ideal albums that housed a world wide collection I bought around 1982 from a Canadian auction house. I kept them as references, although most of the stamps are either long gone as part of my world-wide down-sizing, or were moved decades ago to the British Commonwealth collections that I still have.

There have been efforts over the years to try and convert US collectors to the Gibbons system. As an example, couple days ago, I was thumbing through a 2006 auction catalog from Greg Manning Auctions. For many of his British lots in that sale, he used Gibbons numbers and catalog pricing. Not sure what he was trying to accomplish. I wanted a couple of those lots, but did not bid due to his use of Gibbons.

If you're collecting a particular area, there's much to be said for using the " local" catalogues and albums. They're likely to be much more detailed than other products. So for the French area, I use Maury and Yvert catalogues and have Yvert and MOC albums. Auctions here tend to use Yvert for French area material if it's out of the ordinary. I couldn't imagine using anything other than Gibbons for GB and Commonwealth information.

@Geoff: "there's much to be said for using the "local" catalogues.....

Yes, I have the 2nd edition, 2010, Gibbons catalog for British East Africa (my only Gibbons catalogue). I own and use Mundiphil for Portugal and the former colonies. Not working on either Poland or Mexico right now. But I do have recent Fischer catalogues (Poland) and the final edition of Classic Mexico done by Nick Follansbee.

But I would still question why a US auction house would use Gibbons instead of Scott. He also tried to use Yvert and Michel. Possibly a benefit to use them for lots directed towards specialists, but not for general lots. Not a big deal now as Manning went out of business years ago.

I read in the July issue of Stanley Gibbons Monthly that Showgard will also sell SG products in the US so this likely means SG was initiating this not Amos Media.

I'd bet Amos only offers a very limited range of SG products. The hingeless albums they referenced go for many hundreds of UK Pounds and God knows what Amos will ask for them. Shipping direct from SG to the US is reasonable I'd be ahead buying from there.