I'd like to identify the SG and Michel catalog numbers of some stamps, but they are too numerous to list. Fortunately, they are mostly prior to 1950, so buying old catalogs isn't out of the question. Scott did a complete renumbering of U.S. stamps between 1945 and 1959. Are there similar concerns with GB and Michel after 1950? Is there a reasonable alternative to buying old catalogs?
Thanks!
Lars
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"Expanding your knowledge faster than your collection can save you a few bucks."
I do not recall any significant renumbering of stamps between 1945 and 1959. What changes there were were in some of the definitives as new varieties came up. For example, the Liberty major catalog numbers did not change but whether they are the wet or dry printing did change.
I have been maintaining an databases file of US stamps for over 15 years and I would know it.
"I do not recall any significant renumbering of stamps between 1945 and 1959"
Sorry, I didn't say that correctly. I SHOULD have said: Between 1945 and 1959 Scott did a complete renumbering of early stamps.
I have a 1945 U.S. Specialized catalog and a 1959 U.S. Specialized catalog. Some examples:
First two issues:
1945: #28 and #29
1959: #1 and #2
The 90c stamp issued just before the start of the Civil War:
1945: 54
1959: 39
Things sync back up with what was then called the "Second Designs" with catalog number 63.
Using that as an example, I could find just about anything I need in the late 19th and early 20th century with the 1959 U.S. Scott catalog (other than arbitrary Type differences that don't matter to me).
I'm interested in finding the SG and Michel catalog numbers (and maybe others - Y&T and Fisher?) of old stamps. For example:
Argentina - 1858-79
Thrace - 1913-20
New Republic - 1884-88
Stellaland - 1884-85
India - Feudatory States
Canada - BC & Vancouver Island 1865-89
Italian States - 1851-1863
German States 19th Century
Those are but a few. I have all of the descriptions and definitions and pricing I need from the Scott Catalog, but some places use other catalog numbers. It occurred to me that if a 1959 Scott Catalog would be a reasonably good cross reference for early U.S., perhaps I could buy early copies of SG and Michel (and perhaps others) strictly for the 19th century cross reference of numbers.
It boils down to two questions:
1) Does anyone know of any significant renumbering of 19th century stamps in SG, Michel, etc.? It happened in Scott between 1945 and 1959.
2) In addition to SG and Michel, are Y&T and Fisher the main catalogs in Europe?
I have found several elusive items by searching country and year and wading through the listings, and many were located in Europe using a different catalog than Scott. If I could search the SG, Michel, etc. numbers directly, that would save me a lot of time.
Thanks!
Lars
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"Expanding your knowledge faster than your collection can save you a few bucks."
Collecting the world 1840 to date - one stamp at a time! 01 Dec 2017 11:51:44am
re: Alternate Catalog numbers
AFAIK Michel has had somewhat widespread renumbering sometime in the 1950/60s, but I really don't know the details besides the random notes I've read from old stamp magazines. I've been a Michel user since 1980s, and the numbering has been somewhat static all these years. The most recent major changes were renumbering of (all) Egypt about 5 years back, and before that they did Russia (Imperial) in 2004/5. And I recall modern Benin too got reworked in early 2000s as well...
If there is a society for that individual country, they probably have what you are looking for. The Society for Hungarian Philately has a concordance of catalog numbers on their website that cross references 5 different catalogs.
Thanks everyone. That's just what I was looking for. I just purchased:
Michel-Deutschland-Spezial-Katalog 1988
SG Commonwealth and British Empire 1840-1952 2005: v. 1
SG Simplified Whole World Stamp Catalogue 1960
That should get me started!
Thanks Sean for a GREAT idea! I would have never thought of that.
Thanks again, Nigel and scb. I don't mind looking up a few stamps for someone else or asking for a few favors myself, but I'm looking at about 70 stamps I'm interested in. If I can resolve 90 to 95% myself with these catalogs then I may take Nigel up on his generous offer to look up the remaining 4 or 5.
Lars
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"Expanding your knowledge faster than your collection can save you a few bucks."
Hi Lars,
Have you tried https://colnect.com/en/stamps, they provide multiple catalogue numbers for many of the stamps.
However, as Colnect is a collaborative effort in the same vein as Wikipedia, it is far from complete and may not always be completely accurate.
I do have the SG Southern & Central Africa catalogue so I can help with Lesotho. The mini-sheet issued August 22, 2005 is listed as #1986 (MS1986).
Clive
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- Montserrat - issued Aug 15, 1996 and overprinted "O.H.M.S." in 1997. It's the 40¢ Mythical Creatures stamp (Scott 901) with the O.H.M.S. overprint (Scott O131). I think it's SG O125, but I'm not sure. - very close! It's SG O126
The Liberia listings hadn't been updated for 2005.
I hope this isn't drifting too far off topic, but when I was amassing my Vietnam collection, I was stymied by Scott, because in the 1970s into the 1980s, Scott was not listing the North Vietnamese stamps. I found stampworld.com, and discovered that they have a decent catalog for Vietnam online.
I really don't want to spend the money to amass a room full of catalogs. And I understand that catalog producers would want to keep their product proprietary. And I also understand that it is impossible for ONE catalog producer to be the be-all, end-all for all collecting areas. But it SURE would be nice to have more online resources that could be directly related to an established catalog system (unlike stampworld).
And, yes, I also have hard-to-find stamps that I feel the need to search for using multiple catalog numbers.
I'm going to have to spend some time at colnect.com!