Catalogue numbers in brackets

Deborah Shohet

It appears that if I search by country name and catalogue number (eg Australia 381), it will not return listings that have the numbers in brackets. Can this be changed, as I have catalogue numbers in brackets in all my titles. Some other sellers do also I noticed. If not, can I bulk download, do a search and replace bracket with blank in excel, and bulk upload again? Thanks.

Ted Tyszka

Are you using a bulk upload file? If so, if you want your catalog numbers in brackets, the best way to do is to put the catalog numbers in the file, under their own column, labeled Cat# (or whatever heading you choose).
When you upload the file, customize your listing template by inserting the catalog number in the Title box. That is, you put something like this as your custom title:
{{Title}} ({{Cat#}})

The double bracket tells the program to insert that column from your file in that spot. The parentheses outside the brackets means the program will insert the cat # inside the parentheses.

You can also build up your listing title with other column headings, such as {{Cond}} and {{Year}}.

Did I make that clear as mud.

Ted

Deborah Shohet

Thanks for that Ted. However, I already have the numbers in brackets and that seems to prevent the numbers being located when I search by catalogue number. I would like to remove the brackets.

Ted Tyszka

Then you will have to do as you mentioned. Remove the brackets frome your upload file and then upload it again.
My question, though, is, will you need to reupload the images, or will the system keep the existing image, when you upload the corrected file.

Ted
https://www.hipstamp.com/store/tatyszka-stamps

Ted Tyszka

One more thing, Deborah. Do you have private IDs attached to all your listings, with a column for such in your upload file? You will need those so the system knows the uploaded file is for existing listings. Otherwise, you will get a duplicate set of listings, which wouldn't be a bad thing, either, as you could then simply do a mass delete of all the earlier listings.

Ted

Thomas Keesling

Ted, any suggestions for those of us who have our (SG xxx) in titles following our Scott cat number, but haven't yet used the bulk uploader? I've discovered in recent days that searching for those bracketed SG numbers fails and had not yet gotten around to posting about the problem here in the forums. Thanks!

Ted Tyszka

No, I don't. I've found that with both Scott numbers (with no SC prefix, anyway) and SG numbers in the title, the system ignores the Scott number and inserts only the SG number in the Catalog # box, rendering your listing invisible to searches by Scott #. I have had to individually edit my listings that include both, to add the Scott number to the Cat # box.

Thomas Keesling

Hmmm........I used Scott #xxx (rarely abbreviated to Sc #xxx) in the titles that came over from StampWants. I've got the Scott numbers in the HS Cat # box in all cases. So everything is searchable by Scott. I was hoping to avoid going back and individually editing titles. Fortunately, it's not like I've got thousands of listings! Just a few hundred that I'll need to edit. Thanks!

Thomas Keesling

I did some experimentation and haven't been able to search on the SG # no matter how I format it. I tried your title format: Scott # followed by a comma and then the SG #, but no luck with that for some reason. I ran out of time and remain puzzled by the search function.

Ted Tyszka

Is the SG number also in the Cat # box? That is the only way it will be searchable.

Thomas Keesling

No, only Scott #s are in the box. I thought only one cat # can go in that box. Correct? I provide SG #s as a convenience for collectors who use that cat rather than Scott, but that's not very helpful at present.

Didn't I read in a thread here in the forums that Mark is going to work on providing a way to add a second cat #? I had been hoping that my inclusion of the SG #s (from my StampWants days) in my descriptions would suffice until Mark can do something formally here at HS. If he does that, I hope his coding magic will make my SG cat #s searchable without my needing to individually change things again.

Ted Tyszka

Yes you can put both catalog #s, and only non-scott #s need a prefix. For example a stamp with Scott # 216 and SG # 230 would be entered as 216, SG230.

Tex

Thomas Keesling

Who knew!? I wish I had known that back in May/June when I went through each listed item and reformatted to better conform with HS after they were imported from SW. I missed the first year of BS's existence. I suppose the initial months were somewhat painful as bugs were worked out back then, too.

Thomas Keesling

I see that HS now has a descriptive comment below the Cat # box! I don't recall seeing that a few months ago.

I've spent the past 15 minutes trying to get one item set up to search on either Scott or SG. No luck yet. I can search successfully on the Scott # when the SG # is added to the Cat # box, but not the SG #. I've tried both a comma as well as a comma plus a space between the two numbers in the Cat # box. No luck either way in finding the SG # via search. Outta time for now. Will have to look into this further tomorrow...... Thanks for your help, Ted!

Ted Tyszka

Tom, I just checked some of my listings that have dual catalog numbers in the title and in the Cat# box. I see the same problem you do. Only the Scott # (the 1st one listed in the Cat# box) shows up in searches. I thought I had gotten that problem licked. Thinking back, though, I recall now that my original problem was one whereby the system was plucking the SG number from my titles and placing only that number in the Cat# box. When I manually inserted the Scott numbers ahead of the SG numbers, I was then able to find the Scott #s in search results but not the SG #s. It looks like we will have to wait until that feature gets perfected.

Ted

Thomas Keesling

Ted, thanks for checking! You've saved me some time this morning. I was going to try again to figure out why my SG #s weren't searchable. We'll wait for Mark to sort this out.

Tom