Scott International Part 9 Coverage Question

The Scott International Part 9 is described as covering 1973-4 but the description on Amos' website doesn't specify how much of 1973 is covered. If anyone has either a title page with this info or can provide any details it would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Dale

Why would it be any less than all of 1973 (and 1974)? I'd assume that, anyway. I can't answer for sure because all my International pages have been rearranged into separate countries, not separate years as they come from Scott.

If you already know where the previous Scott International pages ended (presumably they went through 1972, but I don't know for sure), then you'll know the answer to your question. Scott just picked up where they'd left off.

There may have been some pages that added new stamps or rearranged them which you were supposed to use to replace old pages that had some of those stamps on them. That's standard Scott practice. If you don't have Part 8, though, I guess I'd assume Part 9 included all stamps issued in both 1973 and 1974 . . . for the most part, anyway.

I'd suggest phoning Scott / Amos Advantage and asking one of the helpful customer service people your question. You'd think you'd have your answer in just a few minutes that way. But my success in asking that sort of technical question hasn't been the best. It seems that phone answerers are mostly order takers who don't necessarily know the details of the products they're selling. Who knew?

That's what I thought too, then saw that Part 8A is "1971-1973 Pt 1," 8B "1971-1973 Pt 2," and 9 is "1973-1974." At least, according to https://www.ihobb.com/c/SCOTT_INTER...y=disp_order

As classic_paper shows, some of 1973 is covered in Part 8 and some in Part 9. I should have included that detail in my original message.

I am considering setting a soft cutoff of 1973 for my worldwide collection and was thinking of using the International as a guide. The cost of all those parts would not be insignificant.

Recent experience in trying to get useful information out of Amos customer service has been fairly frustrating. Not sure I'm up for tilting at that windmill again so soon.

Dale

Great idea, honestly. There are a number of threads I'm sure you've seen here, detailing people's frustrations with the expense of new issues, and the conceptual issue of that meaning they never complete a collection.

I for one, stop between the '30s and '60s depending on the country. In most cases, the immediate post-WWII period is my stopping point

My usual method to get detailed info on stamp albums, is to look on ebay as many of the listings have scans of all of the pages. Here are some Part IX's: 353363252419, 294092283715, 353363252419, 333903970675, 333899666976, 124632887381

Nice coincidence that the collection I acquired has pages through part 8 which seems to be mid 1973. I think part 8 is also the first that included Scott numbers. What I have noticed, and perhaps not fully accurate, is that when there are year overlaps from one part to another, the preceding part goes through mid of that final year, e.g. part 1 is really through mid 1940 where part 2 begins mid 1940. Part 2 ends at mid 1949 and part 3 begins at mid 1949. And it does seem to be right around June 30th where the break exists.

tsmatx - Thank you for the information. Checking past items on ebay is not something I would have thought to do.

Nicholas - Knowing that the cutoff is roughly mid-year helps a lot. So if I was to use 1973 as my target date, I would need part 9. Thanks!

Dale

Dale, If you want, I can look at my Part 8 pages for a specific country, or two or three or four, and tell you where they end. I actually have all of them out of the binders laying flat across multiple bins (yes, I found bins large enough for Scott album pages). I was planning to put them all back to together (as Part 8) into a new binder at some point. The pages aren't as acidic as the older part pages and I don't have plans to remove and remount stamps from this era.

Nicholas,

That is a very kind offer.

If you have time, would you please check Austria and Poland? If the mid-year point holds, I'd expect the last regular issue stamp for Austria to be in the neighborhood of Scott 943 and for Poland Scott 1985.

Thank you very much!

Dale

Dale,

So, what I actually have isn't a true part 8 it seems. I have pages that are clearly 1971-1972 and then stop (have an empty back-side) and I have pages that are clearly 1972-1973 and then stop (again an empty back-side). My guess is the previous owner purchased the pages as supplements before Scott decided to create an official part 8. I have some cover sheets for "parts" and "supplements" that were added over the years, and I know that some of them are not consistent with the current Scott breakdown.

Looking at the countries you requested and some others, I can only tell you what I have based on the pages I have:

Austria - stops on Scott #939 which according to my catalog is Jan 26, 1973
Poland - stops on Scott #1980 which according to my catalog is Jun 20, 1973

Looking at other A countries:

Afars & Issas - 1973 through March
Afghanistan - 1973 through April
Aitutaki - nothing in 1973 though the catalog has some 1973 prior to June 30, but I think not until April
Albania - 1973 through Feb
Algeria - 1973 through Apr

Apparently the cut-off is not consistent country to country and Scott just makes up for it in the next part or supplement. Perhaps they want to get new pages out as fast as possible to make money and can only go with the information they have.

Nick

I think you hit the nail on the head right there.

Back in the early '80s before Scott was bought by Amos, I saw how supplements were created. There were only 4 people on staff, responsible for updating the catalogs AND creating the layout for every single supplement, more than what exists today, I believe. Four people. No computer tools. New issues were already becoming a flood, but they managed. And this job also entailed proofreading when the artwork or catalog text came back from the printers for approval.

They were quite meticulous, too. They maintained a collection of all the new issues they could find, which was sold off at some point when everything was done. This insured no proposed-but never-issued stamps got in, as well as proper room for borders around stamps. There could always be a slip between them and the printer, but they were more accurate than other album makers, who weren't all that bad themselves.

All this had to be completed far, far in advance of being dropped at the wholesalers and stores. So, it's not like they turn on the printing presses on in January and every single supplement updated to the end of the year comes out of the end of the printing press. So this explains why you see "broken" years in supplements that usually get released in the Spring. Their content reflects all that's done, all that can be done, before their deadline. By comparison, Christmas cards are typically being printed around June-July.

In real life, things don't usually happen at the snap of a finger.

I end my own Scott International albums in 1975, and I don't remember any confusion in doing that. Whatever number supplement covered 1975, it appears to have all the 1975 pages. I haven't noticed any missing so far. So maybe doing that would solve your problem? Maybe choosing a cutoff date for your collection which overlaps two different groups of pages is the source of your problem? You don't have to do that if you can avoid it this easily.

If 1973 is your absolute ending point and you want to include every single stamp through the end of 1973, it appears you would have to purchase the 1974 supplement (Part 9) to be sure you had any pages Scott/Amos added for any missing 1973 stamps. The Scott date numbers for those two consecutive supplements strongly suggest there are 1973 stamps in both of them. Or you could collect up through 1974 - since you'd have those pages, too. Whatever you do, missing stamps would be few and far between since they don't miss many stamps. It's your collection. Or you could just add a few blank pages for missing 1973 stamps. Problem solved either way.

I said previously that Scott has always added stamps they missed by including new pages for those stamps in the next supplement. So the 1971-1973 supplement will almost definitely have omitted "some" 1973 stamps which would have been included on replacement pages in the next (1973-1974) supplement. You just swap the new, more complete pages for the previous incomplete pages. That's what I tried to say, anyway.

StatesmanStamper, you asked "The Scott International Part 9 is described as covering 1973-4 but the description on Amos' website doesn't specify how much of 1973 is covered.." You didn't ask if the 1973-74 pages might include some missing stamps from the earlier 1971-1973 supplement. It probably will. None of this is perfect, and stamps do get left out. The 1973-74 supplement would include any stamps missing from the previous supplement. To have all 1973 stamps, you have to buy the supplement covering 1973-74, but that's pretty obvious given the dates.

I really doubt they had some unknown and unannounced cutoff point for the earlier 1971-73 supplement. What would that be? November of 1973? Early December? I've never heard of them doing that for modern supplements. But maybe.

I'd guess Scott included in its 1971-73 pages all the 1973 stamps they knew of at the time. But that's different from having a cutoff point. Then in the next supplement (1973-74) they would have added any missing 1973 stamps. You need both to have all the 1973 stamps.

Also saying "Knowing that the cutoff is roughly mid-year helps a lot" is misleading. Nicholas did not say that. He said he's noticed that Scott often does not include stamps from the end of a year -- even with that ending year in the description of the pages. I think they do include all stamps they know of and omit very few stamps, including any of those they missed in the next group of pages. That's not the same as a cutoff in mid-year or at any other point. Nicholas' qualifying "Seems to be" and "perhaps not fully accurate" are worth noting. Missing stamps refers to stamps Scott was unaware of, not to stamps after a particular date.

Also his "And it does seem to be right around June 30th where the break exists" does not refer to more recent International album supplements which do not, at least in my experience, have June 30th cutoff dates. That cutoff date refers to the earliest volumes of the International album. Those grew out of earlier incomplete volumes which always omitted stamps from the final year. For example, Scott's old 19th century International volume omitted all of 1900. Maybe part of 1899, too, but I'm not sure. That's the way they once operated, but that's not how later supplements worked. For more modern supplements, they did not cut off the final year at some point. They just didn't include stamps they didn't know of yet. That the original Volume I left out many 1940 stamps was an earlier approach. But that does't mean this was Scott's corporate policy from then on. "June 30th" was not the ending point of all later supplements. As time went on, Scott's page layout system improved and became more efficient and more complete.

So there seems to be some confusion on a number of points here.

If 1973 is the year you want to end your worldwide collection, buy both supplements labeled for 1973 pages and leave out pages for after 1973. It just seems that simple.