Requesting Your Opinions Of Philatelic Catalogs

Beginners want to spend money on stamps, not supplies or catalogs. We see it here constantly, and I suspect many of the very advanced collectors here started that way too. We earned to swim in the shallow end of the pool first, then ventured into the deeper water.

My first exposure to a catalog was the USPS "Stamps and Stories" from the mid 1970s. It was several years before I learned there was a more advanced and detailed version in Scott's "U.S. Specialized" catalog, then only with black & white illustrations. Now I know there is even more specialized literature in journals and monographs and have been able to contribute to that knowledge.

Add: Many of the young/new collectors I see enter into the hobby through topicals related to an existing occupation, sport, hobby etc. Making them aware of the American Topical Association website may be a better first step than any particular catalog. "You mean stamps aren't just a bunch of dead presidents?"

Sure, but I'm sure they also 1) don't want to get ripped off, and 2) get ideas about what to collect, or what's available to collect. No one is saying a new collector should drop hundreds on a complete Scott Worldwide, but throwing a few bucks at an old volume or two has no downside.

Just a quick observation about the Michel catalogs.
When I got back into this hobby as a worldwide collector about a decade ago I bought a well used set of Scott very inexpensively but looked hard at Michel which were also available in about 8 volumes to cover whole world.
Today you need a crazy large number of Michels for worldwide coverage at a prohibitive price.

I think that's certainly true although it doesn't take very long before you are trying to figure out different watermarks, pre-war or war-time printings, etc.

Even then I have to admit that I find more information with better examples, and explanations looking in these forum threads or other online resources than I do from the catalogs.

Good stuff, thank you thank you! Please keep it coming if you feel you can add more.

Don, you did hit the nail on head in that catalogs/reference material is primarily for identification; valuation being secondary. Trying to iron out some verbiage to gently/politely explain to a beginner or potential collector on how to walk that line between explaining how catalog values really "work" (or don't, in many cases) while in the same breath explaining why catalogs are useful and potentially worth an investment.

Also thank you to those who pointed out you may not need paper catalogs at all. Yikes...lots to process; but appreciate everyone's time and feedback very much.

GeoffHa said:


I grew up in London, and this was my first catalogue as well. It still sits proudly on my shelf. First thing I'll be doing when I hit my stamp room tomorrow will be putting it on my desk and flipping thru it while reminiscing about simpler (and better) times !

Dealers and auction houses need to upgrade EVERY year.

Serious collectors can get away with upgrading every few years, especially if they've decided to have a cut-off date given the plethora of new issues.

Specialists pretty much write their own catalogues, and will know things that nobody else does.

Beginners will do well to buy a catalogue that's a few years old and spend their money on stamps, thereby finding out what they like before investing too heavily into brand new reference material.

New collectors today are very lucky - most of the catalog information needed can be found online for free. I'd point out those resources first before suggesting any cash outlay for print copies.

I think discouraging (or diminishing the usefulness of) catalogues and literature is a serious disservice to new collectors. They don't need to start with one or three, but, they should be told of their potential usefulness as they progress in this hobby.

Of course there is no universal answer. What do you like to collect? Start there in looking for your first "specialist" material.

"Online" is a tricky one. The online-only catalogues have issues, as far as I've seen. I haven't seen one I'd like to use as my only source of information. That may change, but I don't see that happening soon.

That said, some societies have put their journals online, and that's great. I don't think of that as an online substitute for catalogues, though.

The entry price for a new collector can mean a lot more money is spent for supporting supplies rather than stamps themselves if one is expected to have a binder and pages for storing stamps, tongs. hinges / mounts, price list, and then at some point a cataloh etc. This may be more a challenge for a worldwide collector especially if they get more serious. There is a quantum leap when one wants a complete set of Scott's or other brand. Yes for topics they can join ATA to purchase topic lists by Scott number.

The good news is there are online resources for catalog related activities (identification, valuation). However I do not see societies giving them much attention for beginning collectors. Telling collectors to use the search function may not the best response to many questions here or elsewhere unless they are educated on how to search.

The structured approach is to identify novice tasks (identification, maybe valuation, etc) and structure information that way rather than some simple reference. Telling collectors to use the search function may not the best response to many questions here or elsewhere unless they are educated on how to search.

I'd agree that early catalog adoption is a good thing if the new collector is joining the hobby to be a completionist; buy some catalogs and a preprinted albums and have at it. Nothing wrong with this if the person enjoys filling the spaces. Catalogs also are great for those interested in treasure hunting, they can buy significant amounts material while feeling good about their purchases based upon catalog valuations. Again, nothing wrong with this if that is what the person wants to do. After all, many of us (including myself with my OCD) started in this way.

But my opinion, after having learned many of the other aspects that philately can offer, includes recommendations to start slowly and to encourage new hobbyists to explore the hobby to better understand what they want out of it. I steer them to using free online resources and stock pages to accumulate their material and to help organize their collecting focus and preferences.

I would not call this a disservice to the hobby, I would call this trying to help others by learning from the mistakes I made.
Don

Many "youth booths" at shows will simply give potential new collectors and beginners a basic supply kit such as a pair of tongs, perforation gauge, stock pages, etc., along with a pile of stamps. Also a good booth can expose newbies to the many facets of the hobby and see if any of them "click".

For starting collectors, easy to use catalog might be more important than a detailed catalog. For this, I'd recommend digitized catalogs or online catalogs. A beginner's goal is first to identify his stamps. Later, when he has a variety in stamp series, he'd go into different watermarks, perforations, and paper types (like fluorescence paper and marking).
So first he needs good search abilities. I use online catalogs and supportive sites like big blue or stamp-collecting-world and back it up with PDF Scott and SG. When the collector moves from novice to expert then... I don't know, I haven't reached that point yet.

Andyrich74

Are you getting the responses you want?

The more I think about it the catalog question becomes more important when trying to collect worldwide so beyond a single country catalog. Unlike SG, Scott does not offer regional catalogs but then one can extracted pages from CHIROKMD.

Country identification - several websites have lists that help one decipher the issuing country.

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