SC #'s Followed By Letters

I mistakenly refered to a 3647a when I should have said 3647A. I am new so I think I was forgiven

I have noticed A,B,C...L,M,N...etc and also a,b,c...etc

I am starting to get a feel for some of it but is there guide online somewhere that explains all this?

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

More info



Don

You ought to invest in a Scott catalog. An older one will do fine, and won't cost an arm and a leg


Peter

In the US, public libraries of decent size will have Scott catalogs in the reference section. Any volume has the introductory/explanatory section (an excerpt shown above), that will take some time to learn. You can make a copy of that section for a reference.

It appears that uppercase letters after a number are for those stamps that belong to a series or issue that had to be inserted in between two other numbers later on. If a newly added stamp needs to be listed between Scott 11 and 12, then it would be 11A. If it is a stamp that is a variety of Scott 11 then it would be with a lowercase letter such as 11b.

The John Paul Jones issue of 1979 is a good example of the topic. There is but one number with five letters:

1789 as assigned by Scott when first issued with 11 x 12 perforations.
1789A as assigned by Scott when it was determined the issue also had 11 x11 perforations.
1789B as assigned by Scott when it was determined the issue also had a very few stamps perforated 12 x 12, a version which catalogs in the thousands, more if used and more yet if found on cover.
1789c assigned when it was determined that pairs of stamps were produced with the horizontal 11 x 12 perforations missing between a vertical pair but the top and bottom and both sides still had proper 11 x 12 perforations.
1789Bd assigned when it was determined that pairs of stamps were produced with the horizontal 11 x 11 perforations missing between a vertical pair but the top and bottom and both sides still had proper 11 x 11 perforations.

That said, a capitol letter does not mean more valuable nor does a lower case letter mean less valuable, rather it depends on the individual stamp. The most valuable capitol letter stamp is 85A a very rare Z-grill and the most valuable lower case letter is C3a (Prefix letter identify the type or purpose of the stamp numbering group) the center inverted 24 cent Jenny airmail stamp.

Edit A:

In your original thread my comment was give as you had identified your self as a novice. I was merely pointing out for Scott number upper or lower case makes a difference when letter are appended to a number. the letters are not like an email address where upper/lower case does not normally matter. [ I have an email address which I send out with the first letter capitalized as "L" as in 'el' because if I send it out as a lower case "l" 'el' some folks think it is a capital "I" 'eye' and change my email to "in..." which bounces when it should be "ln..." ("LN..."

Edit(a):

Scott 279 is a good letter stamp as well--
279
279a
279B
279Bc
279Bd
279Be
279Bf
279Bg
279Bh
279Bi
279Bj
279Bk
279Bl

The cases of 423A, 423B, 423C, and 423D, which are compound perforations are also an interesting case. The numbering with the capital letter to squeeze them in between 423 which ends the perf 12 series and 424 which begins the perf 10. It would be very confusing if they were 423a, b,c,d because they are notvariants of the 423.

Not to mention it took the better part of a century to get them "full number listed" with capitol letters.

Generally, those catalogue numbers followed by big letters should have their own separate listing such as

90.....
90b...

90A...

91.....
91a...

rather than

90.....
90A..
90b..

91....
91a..

Speaking of sorting catalog numbers with letter suffixes, does anyone know an easy way to sort these listings properly in Excel? If I use the standard sort feature, it sorts all the ordinary numbers fine, but any catalog number with a suffix it pushes to the bottom of the list, and then sorts them alphabetically.

For example:

999
1000
2000
3000
...
1520b
320a
400A
...

Note 1520b is listed before 320a because 1 sorts alphabetically lower than 3.
But more importantly, I want 1520b listed between 1519 and 1521.
Searching Google I couldn't find a way to do it without writing a custom script or macro.
I realize it may take a custom macro to intersperse 90, 90b, 90A in the correct stamp catalog order, but Excel's standard sorting will put 90b near the very bottom of the spreadsheet because it starts with a "9" and contains a letter.
Is there an easier way that I am missing?

I list all my US stamp images with a 4 numeral leader

Sc#1 will be 0001
Scott 1500a will be 1500a

Sorts perfectly
Never use excel

If I ever needed an excel sheet, I would hit CTRL-G and I would have the 6000 US stamps in spreadsheet or database form in 3 seconds.

See 1483A

Purists will dislike this suggestion, but one easy way to sort fields in Excel with mixed data characteristics is to add an additional dummy "sorting" column to the far right (where you won't need to suppress or print it), which is purely numerical with translated alphabetic suffixes into decimals. Very few cells will require changing from the whole Scott numeber.
320b = 320.2
400A = 400.1
1519 = 1519
1520b = 1520.2
1521 = 1521
Want BOB sections to follow with similar adaptability for suffixes?
Then increment each section by 1000 from 10000:
C1 = 10001
C2 = 10002
C3 = 10003
C3a = 10003.1
E1 = 11001
F1 = 12001, etc

I could probably whip-up an Excel macro to implement this sort pretty easily.

Are the catalog numbers ever in any format other than letter prefix (if applicable), number, letter suffix (if applicable)? Ex. 345a, B345a, 345A. etc. So no 4b1, B4a2, etc.

Unaware for US Scott,
but France have ex: 2O21 etc
and China similar mixed alpha numeric sequencing

Yes, the Scott numbers can have an alpha prefix and/or suffix.
1
1a
2
3
C2
C3
C3a

I typically use 'helper' columns and a multi-level sort. Once I have the sorted I add a new column named 'sort' and just 'fill down' sequential numbering so I then have a permanent and persistent column to sort on. Once I have this column, I go back and remove my original 'helper' columns.

I use one of the helper columns to pad leading 0's using a formula like this
=TEXT(A1,REPT("0",3))

I have never bothered to write any VBA script since I do not need to do this very often. When using Excel with catalog numbers, I really only use it as a population tool for SQL tables, I tend to split out the prefixes and suffixes in their own columns.
Don

Scott never assigns a 123A and 123a.so no confusion there. It is a major or minor variety.

For Scott albums, issues with a capital suffix will have a space, those with a lower case do not get a space except when it is a block, etc.

In my spreedsheet, I usually put the Scott or SG number in 2 or 3 columns (prefix, base number, suffix) and use concatenate function to join. But, I will add a fourth column with my own suffix like to indicate printer, source, etc.

Some for an SG list.

MS 123 Eau DX14