Pushing 330,000 All Different Worldwide Stamps In One Collection .

Never sure why some perf varieties get a full Scott number and some only a lower case letter

Because Scott is inconsistent.

I believe this inconsistent listings goes back to the days went different stamp dealers and stamp socities had a say or a influences to how various countries were listed . A big factor was those dealer price list ads that were published in stamp newspapers .

Per Scott:

I'll use the example of Netherlands Indies stamps I posted about it "What Did You Do Philatelically..." The original issue was printed in 1933-37 on unwatermarked paper. The reprints appeared from 1938-40 on watermarked paper. All the reprints were given major Scott numbers. The only minor numbers in these sets were for perf varieties.

Now in the second issues, there were some unique values so in Scott's schema these unique stamps could not get minor numbers. That said, there are MANY examples in Scott's where a set had a watermark change and Scott's assigned MINOR numbers to the ensuing set. In these cases, if a new denomination appeared in the reprints, Scott's gives those stamps major numbers which then have to comingle with watermark varieties.

The basic flaw here, which is by no means unique to Scott, is that minor numbers should be coded to the type of variety and not always be using "a" as the go-to for the first variety. The "a" provides no insight as to what the variety actually is. It could be a perf, paper, shade, date variety, die variety, minor error, major error, tete beche, etc, etc. An "a" number can even be a booklet pane.

It seems to me that Scott had the foresight, at least at some point in time, to assign prefix letters for things like semi-postals, air post, special delivery, postage dues, officials, newspaper stamps, etc. So why not a logical system of suffixes?

It would be great if all perf varieties existed within a limited set of letters such as p, q, r, s, t, u... or even just p1, p2, p3, etc. Watermark varieties could be "w'," paper varieties "p" assuming p wasn't used for perfs. "d" could signify a die variety, "e" for errors, "b" for booklet panes, "t" for tete-bech and so on. Would really provide more meaning to varieties and help the collector know which suffixes they are looking for.

I always wanted that worldwide collection that had the stuff you normally never seen ....... still working to put in stuff that is on the edges of philately

On this discussion of Scott's sub-numbers and varieties was not around when I got my first volume of the Scott Catalog . All these policy changes came over time and with each new editor . The first view of changes coming was found in the stamp newspapers as dealers were expanding their listings and offers in advertisments .

Russian Offices in the Turkish Empire

Nice complete page with offices in turkish empire, floortrader.

I had to look at my page. Alas I'm missing 6, plus another has no gum and another is thinned. So I still have a way to go yet.

Great page Floortrader. The page says a lot about why I love collecting definitives. Those stamps could not have been easy to put together.

Thanks Thinkstamp and Shermae for the positive comments .

One of the hardest countries to complete in the Part 1 of the Scott International Albums .

Great topic. I bought my first world-wide mounted packet in the 1970s. 40,000 all different. Lots of junk and CTO plus Trucial states. But I didn't care. 40 "books" on thin paper and of course it took a while to load up my Scott Internationals. Many years later I brought the albums up to year 2000. Needless to say, not many stamps in the newer albums and
they take up a lot of bookshelf space. In that particular collection, I'm up to about 73,000 all different. I also have them listed in Open Office spread sheets. Yes, that took some time!
I'm sure it won't do much good when my heirs get the collection but it's still fun to collect, mount, and update the spread sheets.
Dave in Portland, OR