Problem with old versus new Scott catalog numbers for Portuguese colonies
I've been listing older Portuguese colonies stamps in my store. I don't normally do a search for other similar HipStamp listings, but did so this morning out of curiosity. I had posted an Angola Scott 128 and later did a HipStamp search. Three other Angola stamps with that number appeared in the search along with my new listing, but all three of the other listings were a different Angola stamp. I remembered that Scott had made major changes to the Portuguese colonies stamp listings a few years ago and checked my old 1987 Scott catalog. Sure enough, those other three stamps were listed at HipStamp with the old Scott catalog number. Mine is the only copy listed with the newer catalog number.
The three copies listed with the older Scott number were from three different sellers, all with thousands of feedback. It had not occurred to me that any sellers would still be using the old Scott numbering system. Why wouldn't sellers, especially high volume sellers, be using current Scott numbers? Isn't this confusing to buyers? How do buyers deal with this problem?
Tom
The three copies listed with the older Scott number were from three different sellers, all with thousands of feedback. It had not occurred to me that any sellers would still be using the old Scott numbering system. Why wouldn't sellers, especially high volume sellers, be using current Scott numbers? Isn't this confusing to buyers? How do buyers deal with this problem?
Tom
Comments
I have the same problem and kinda chuckle when other sellers (not stamps sellers, just general) mention that they spent a whole week tweeking their inventory and got only 3 sales from that.
Should have spent your week listing new stuff and would have had dozens and dozens of new sales.
Too many sellers of all areas are too worried about keeping their stuff neat and up to date while there is only one way to make more and more $$ and that is list list list and list!!!!!
New stuff is where the majority of the sales come from.
Why don't some update the catalog numbers? Probably because they don't have newer catalogues. Who has almost $1000 to buy a new set of catalogues every year?
Catalog values do not change all that much from year to year. There are always a few exceptions, but by and large values have been stagnant for several years.
850 changes for Bahrain
700 changes for Bermuda
1,300 changes for Belize
4,500 changes for Brazil (And some of the drops were as great as 75% or more)
950 changes for Brunei
4,300 changes for Bulgaria (Most were in the 10-15% down)
1,300 changes for Burkina Faso.
The problem comes when they do the major adjustments and the number of accumulated changes over a number of years. No one is saying one has to do it every year,but it would probably be a good idea to do it once every 4-5 years.
Who's paying $1,000 for a set of catalogs? You should be able to pick up the set of 6,the US specialized and the classic for right around $850 shipped via Priority mail off of Ebay. (That what I got the new 2019's for last year off Ebay) If you only get the 6 volumes you should be able to get them for a little less than $600 and there were about 4 or 5 different sellers that had them with free shipping for between about $85-$87.50 per volume.
"I had the new catalogue numbers, he was searching by old catalogue numbers. Can't please them all."
I know you provide good images with your listings, Doug, but this is another good reason for all sellers to include an image whenever they can. Catalog numbers in sales listings can't always be trusted. I must be providing enough information in my listings so that prospective buyers know what they're buying. I have not yet encountered any problems related to catalog number changes.
I went back and looked. I sold most of my Portuguese colonial Ceres stamps prior to 2016 and have listed a few dozen again this year based on the 2019 Classic Specialized. Since I'm a former collector rather than a dealer, I'm not managing tens of thousands of stamps. It's easier for me to deal with this problem.
Until this year, I always had easy access to the current Scott catalogs at the local library branches. I have not yet convinced the buyers at Central Library that they need a couple of copies available each year to circulate to the branches from Central Library upon demand. If other large city library systems are dramatically cutting back on Scott catalog purchases like ours has done, that is a lot of lost revenue for the company. Plus, it is creating problems for local collectors who relied on those current Scott catalogs at the branches for the past couple of decades at least.
Tom
I agree.
Also, as some here will remember, I did bi-annual reviews of the entire Scott catalogue values starting around 2012. I don't know if any of the reviews remain on this site, but the more recent ones are on Stamporama. I am currently doing an update of my collection with the 2020 catalogues, but I am not doing the detailed review like I had in the past. I can say that between 2017 and 2020, there has been little change overall. A few countries have gone up (usually from the Middle East, like the Sheikdoms and Kuwait = +25%). A few other countries have gone down. Overall decreases were the result of many stamps being reduced to minimum value. The average overall value change in value for most countries lies in the +2% to -2% range. Usually the mix of increases and decreases pretty much even themselves out.
Regarding the price of the catalogues, add the US Specialized, and you have $1000, or close enough to call it that.
Last year I got all 8 of the Scott cats including the Scott's classic for a little less than $850 last year. And if you look on Ebay there is one guy selling a full set of all 6 plus the specialized for $585 shipped right now. Other wise they are selling for about $90 shipped per volume. If you are paying $1000 for the set of seven you're paying WAY too much. (I just checked over there)