Scott Specialized US Catalog.time For A Discussion?

I was thinking recently if anybody has any thoughts about splitting the Scott Specialized catalog into 2 volumes?

I would be interested in other's ideas pro and con.

I am pretty much strictly a revenue collector with some dabbling in other back of the book.

With the proliferation of new issues every year, obviously the catalog is getting bigger and bigger.

That being said, as a revenue collector, I seldom have to refer to the "front of the book". I'm guessing there are many postage stamp collectors that have probably hardly ever cracked the back of the book section open.

Anybody care to chime in with their thoughts on this?

What would be included in Vol 1? What would be included in Vol 2?

I can't imagine them ever doing so. In their minds the BOB volume would be a money loser, and there would almost certainly be a serious backlash from hobby professionals, and many collectors as well. All it would do is make it twice as expensive for them and many collectors who use many areas of the catalog regularly. Scott tends to treat the BOB areas as second class citizens already, Splitting the catalog would probably make it worse.

As someone who collects front of the book and back of the book, I would rather see a "Classic US Specialized" with all the 19th century material including local posts, revenues, essays proofs etc. in one volume, maybe only issued every 2 or 3 years, and then the regular Specialized could drop a lot of the BOB and essay/proof material to concentrate on new issues and pricing by grade.

Again, professionals would hate that idea. Three year old catalog prices????? And they would sell less total volume that way. They are not going to do anything that might well result in less books being sold each year.

The late Gary Ryan, one of the key figures in getting the Revenue Commission established by the FIP, spoke at the New York Collectors Club many years ago and reminded all of us that the reasons for the poor recognition of revenues internationally was that most foreign catalog publishers dropped revenues from their catalogs no later than the 1920's because the books were getting too big. Ryan praised the U.S. publishers for keeping them in the catalog.

If it was digital any section or part could be published and/or purchased separately. It would also remove the dependency on cutting down trees and the cost of the shipping carbon footprint. Lastly, it would remove any 'size' constraints.

But as Rev mentions, this is not going to happen as long as hobbyists are fine with buying hardcopies every year. After all, we want to see what great investments we have made and see those catalog values go up, up, up.
Don

Gibbons only publishes the individual volumes of the GB Specialised (QV, Kings etc) every few years, but I suspect that sales are quite low compared with the standard GB Concise publication.

Not sure why Scott hasn't done better in the digital content world but perhaps it's the reluctance of the collector? If their digital sales ever picked up it would be very easy to A-La-Carte catalog sections. You could start a base price catalog and additional sections added to the download at $5 each or along those lines.

I have a 2018 US Specialized and if I find a way clean way to split it I would remove most everything beyond the first half of the book. It would definitely reduce the weight. I may give it a try.

When I had purchased country extracts from the CHIROKMD, I had put them in protective sleeves. I collect too many countries now to do that but could scan them (on my list of something to do).

I am against splitting the Specialized print version.

Now a question for the OP, if revs (and dabbles) are all you are interested in, why buy a new catalog? one 3-4 years old every 5 years should do. Why not?

Like it or not, the BOB collectors are the tail and should not be wagging the dog. Hate the extra pages, just razor-blade out what you want and recycle or resell the rest. Remember my name as you read this paragraph.





Part of the reason is digital is not really secure. Get one copy out on the internet for free downloading and the catalogs for that year are dead sales wise.

Parcelpostguy,

I don't usually buy a new copy every year, so that is not the hangup. I just don't like lugging around such a hefty book especially at shows.

However, you did bring up a valid point. I hadn't thought about cutting out just the revenues and then selling the rest of the sections online. I'm sure there would be a taker or two.

Anyway, some interesting comments so far.

My opinion is that this is an excuse that is often heard from publishers and I do not buy into it; making photocopies has been around for decades.

Additionally, I can scan and digitize a hardcopy catalog in a day or two and publish it on an underground web hosting company in Kathmandu the next day.
Don

I bought my Specialized physical a few years ago, and then downloaded a pdf of it from a random search engine link. Never use the physical version. I wasted money on the catalog of errors digital. It's so incomplete compared to specialized it shouldn't even be a thing. I am thinking about picking up a Durland as I heard I can get insights into desirable plate blocks not highlighted in Scott.

Scott authorized or "bootleg"?

At the cost of photocopies and binding or other organization, reproduction of a Specialized does not make financial sense.

You digital take is right on, now what happened to Napster, Copying DVDs and other digital media? How many years offering Scott's publications for free downloads will it take before Amos Press says, "Hey collector's you are on your own."

How about Scott donate the copyright to Wikipedia or the digital commons and let folks keep the catalog up to date? Haven't we shown the lack of need for newspapers, actual encyclopedias and books as well as magazines, who needs stamp catalogs? Click bait journalism is the way to go.

Heck copyright and patents are just anti-poor people when the poor people can't or chose not to pay for a copyright or patented item. Even today's news has a high-profile person suggesting for the good of the poor, all patents be set aside for certain products.

Of course downloadable Scott Cats can be found on the web.: ***Removed BY Mod***



That has been on of the greatest parts of the rise of the internet, you can get much free or low cost now rather than having to pay. It also reduces the outlandish amount of money entertainers, book writes, film makers used to receive and bring their income in line with other jobs like flipping burgers. It just takes longer to drive the price down when an organization has lots of money to pay lawyers such as the film and TV industry does.

Anything digitized should be available in a library to be checkout by anyone and renewed repeatedly without a limit to the copies made. One library could serve the entire digital demand simultaneously without the stupid, inefficient delays of checking out a physical book and waiting for its return. People create books and all other digital material out of love, not to profit or even do something as base as feed themselves. The so called "Sharing Economy" make it the law.

I have now put away my soap box.

I meant to put this in my first post and forgot. After consideration, I think here is better than buried at the end of my first post.

Don't forget, that back of the book area is where one finds the stamps listed for other countries (Hawaii) and other geographical portions of the USA which were or became independent if not absorbed into the USA. Lastly it is the place to find the UNPA listing and not just the New York Office.. While that is physically in the back of the book, it is front of the book for those who collect stamps as geographical areas.