Is Scott Mounts Soon To Be No More?

They are not, contrary to what the ignorant media, or purposely misleading media, says.

That was made clear for the USA point of view during the 2 hr, 39 min + oral arguments. {Basically taxes are inward facing; tariffs outward facing; taxes are specifically to collect revenue, tariffs specifically to stop, slow or prevent sending products for import.)

To bring it to philately, how much in postage stamps are affixed? $1.00. How much was postage? $0.90. Why the extra $0.10? C.O.D. fee of $0.10. Most ignorant folks would say postage was a dollar. Fees are not postage.

Taxes and tariffs serve different purposes in government revenue generation.

Taxes are financial charges imposed on individuals or businesses to fund government activities. They can be levied on income, property, or goods and services within a country.

Tariffs, on the other hand, are fees specifically applied to imported or exported goods. Their primary purpose is to influence trade by making foreign products more expensive, thereby protecting domestic industries from foreign competition. Tariffs are paid by importers at the point of entry and can vary based on trade agreements or policy changes.

Yes, Scott mounts are still available in the after market like ebay but usually at a much higher cost than originally from Scott. Most Scott products have not been available from Scott for many months; some for a year. Why?

I buy now buy Prinz mounts from a different supplier and doubt if will ever return to Scott if they manage to restock.

According to Ossian Smyth, Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and at the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, responding in the Dáil Éireann on 20 March 2024, under the Circular Economy (Environmental Levy)(Plastic Bag)(No. 2) Regulations 2023 (S.I. No. 698 of 2023) the minimum size levy exemption for very lightweight plastic bags has now been removed, and also the minimum price requirement of 70c for reusable bags.

In regard to the latter, he states "Reusable bags are no longer subject to the minimum price requirement if they have a minimum wall thickness of 50 microns. These are substantial bags which are typically stored and reused by the purchaser, rather than being disposed of in the manner of lightweight bags."

Prinz miniature plastic bags, a.k.a. "stamp mounts", have a wall thickness of 140 microns, and are thus no longer subject to the minimum price requirement. Maybe someone should let them know.

If you're reduced to raiding your neighbour's recycling bin for some polystyrol to cut up, you can use Methyl Ethyl Ketone to glue it together. You could use sheets of archival Mylar instead, but it looks like that's more difficult to glue up.

There can be no duties of goods sold from another EU member country. That would include the Republic of Ireland. The reply from customer services might relate to VAT and obscure local taxes levied on philatelic supplies being higher in Ireland than in Germany.

Has anyone asked Scott directly why the supply issues?

Strongly recommend you not screw with MEK unless you have a strong grasp of chemistry, have proper protective gear, and do it in a well ventilated area that is not your stamp room (or house).

Save your money and health and just buy mounts.

MEK and Butyl Acetate are the main components in plastic model cement. They have absolutely no utility in stamp collecting. Those chemicals will turn thin, polystyrene sheets into goo, even in tiny amounts.

HAWID sells adhesive to work with custom sized mounts. There is a pen and have seen tubes of adhesive.

Hawid did sell a "sort of" mount making kit, at least you could modify the mount.

What happens when government takes over your life.

We had a Revolution here in America but have since slid backwards at a torrid pace.

Nope, it is what happens if anti-social people just dump all their disposable plastics where they stand because they cannot be bothered with using bins.

You then get politicians that think levying a small charge on plastics will prevent people from using plastics. Of course, they miss the point that these people cannot be bothered with anything, will go shopping without taking a carrier bag with them and have to pay anyway. Also, since you cannot package a salad in a paper napkin, you only drive up inflation. Since those are sunk costs, why not dump the garbage where you stand. Better still: since you had to pay for it, why not stand on your bin to toss it out of the window to spite the simpletons we elect to represent us?

Tarriffs are taxes, but not all taxes are tariffs. They are not quite "the same thing" but they are both taxes, so the same in that way, while one is purely domestic, the other a tax purely on imports. This is pretty basic stuff many people don't seem to understand. All vehicles are not trucks, but all trucks are vehicles.

The U.S. Constitution prohibits taxes on exports, but not on imports. Import tariffs, once used as a source of federal revenue (in the era before 1913 when we had no income tax) have been used in the last century or so primarily to regulate trade. The general trend by both political parties -- until Trump arrived -- was to favor free trade which means not limiting trade with tariffs. Free trade was seen as a very good thing for world economic growth, but "America Firsters" care little about the world economy, but only the U.S. economy as though we are not part of the world.

A tariff in imports slows down trade from the country tariffed because it slows purchases of those products because the tariff raises the price of those items. It does that because the importer who pays the federal government the tariff (it's not paid to the foreign government), then naturally raises the price he charges the consumer. So tariffs are inherently inflationary, one reason they have been generally avoided for many years.

This -- tariffs causing inflation -- has happened recently to such products as new cars where a few thousand extra dollars has been added to the price of many cars. Some people still seem confused about how tariffs work, but it's pretty simple. It's worth mentioning that Congress has sole responsibility for all federal revenue which includes tariffs, so whether a president even has the executive power to set taxes like tariffs is questionable, a question the Supreme Court is currently facing.

Speaking of inflation (just to stay off the subject a little longer which is Scott stamp mounts!) it went up greatly under Biden but it also came back down greatly under Biden, something people often seem to omit -- down to "around" 3%. It remains today at around 3%. Trump has done little to lower most prices, as consumers know, while having some limited success at reducing some things like drug prices -- at the same time announcing various inconsistent and erratic tariffs which themselves are inherently inflationary. So in terms of inflation we're about in the same place we were in during the final year of Biden. Trump would be much wiser to eliminate most or all of his tariffs if he really wants to lower inflation. Of course, the damage with most countries not trusting the U.S. economically anymore has already been done.

What this specifically has to do with the price of Prinz or Scott mounts, I'm not sure, but there have been erratic shortages of mounts lately which I suppose could have to do with tariff policies. Or maybe there is a manufacturing issue in Germany where all mounts now sold today are made (by Prinz). As most people know, Scott simply rebrands Prinz mounts with their own name. They are the same product. Maybe Prinz has been reluctant to ship mounts to the U.S.? I wonder if non-U.S. buyers are receiving mount shipments? Anyone know?

Amos Media (Scott) has had other problems recently with a number of products they sell, including the unavailability of Scott slipcases which took me from February of this year when I ordered them until this month (November) to get them shipped due to what Amos says were manufacturing issues.

Their publication of their Linn's monthly journal was, if I recall correctly, also inconsistent due to some printing company problems. There just seem to be a number of manufacturing and shipping issues lately including problems with "small parcel" shipments from many European countries due to Trump's erratic tariff policies which were so unclear many countries stopped shipping small parcels to the U.S. Any off-the-cuff trade policy like Trump's that has not been thought through carefully is going to be confusing. Trump's was particularly confusing, making it harder to buy stamps from European sellers, many of whom refused to sell to the U.S. for awhile, as I experienced repeatedly. Could this perhaps have been one source of the slow shipments of stamp mounts?

As for the comment on the American Revolution (1775-83) after which we "slid backwards at a torrid pace," If that slide took 200+ years, I'd hardly call it a "torrid pace". What actually happened, as historians know, after about a century of little to no government regulation of much of anything was the gradual creation over the last century of a more regulatory state which regulates what were once serious problems in the economy (monopolies, price-fixing, kickbacks, abuses of labor, stock market manipulation). And now cares for people through such agencies as Social Security, regulations of child labor, working conditions laws, labor unions, unemployment insurance, environmental laws to insure clean air and water, medical care for the poor, medical care for the elderly, FEMA to help people in emergencies, the national park system for recreation, food assistance to children and the poor, and so on -- none of which existed at the time the country was founded, but thank goodness we have them today.

As for stamp mounts, you've all got me so worried, I may go buy a bunch more of the sizes I need.

I have 3 "banker" boxes mostly full of mounts I will never use.

Amos has exited the stamp publication business; all of the magazines and catalogues have been sold to a new entity, Scott Stamp.

Amos still has the supplies business for now, which includes albums and mounts.

Given the general state of disorganization and financial stress that exists there (which precipitated the sale of the publications in the first place), it's not surprising that there are periodic shortages of supplies.