How to create perfect cross-references between Scott, Michel, Stanley Gibbons etc. stamp catalogue – legally
For some time I’ve been thinking stamp catalogue index numbers (yes, those running numbers that stamp catalogues use to identify each stamps) and their purpose. I know it sounds a silly topic to bother the mind, but it’s actually very interesting one.
The thinking behind catalogue catalog numbering systems is simple – create a straightforward numbering system (that is preferrably consecutive) to identify different stamps of each country/area.
But alas, the numbering system should also be unique to avoid possible copyright contradicts with existing numbering systems. And in case of errors, it should have room for extension. And… It’s both amazing and absurd to see how differently the same stamps can be specified in different catalogs.
Without a doubt this is a bottleneck that many dealers, collectors and alike have learned to live with. I’m sure many readers of this blog are familiar with rules like “use Scott numbers for US stamps” or “Use Michel numbers for German (or any mid-European) stamps”… Some collectors try to go detour and seek cross-references (=Excel sheets) between various stamp catalog numbering systems. Here’s a newsflash: such cross-references do not exist legally (notice the bolding on last word).
But… Here’s a truly mind blowing thought I received last night. And above all, it’s a perfect and simple way to cross-reference between any stamp catalog.
What if we, collectors and dealers, simply abandon the use of stamp catalog index numbers when buying/selling/exchanging stamps?
And before you suggest that I’ve lost my marbles, please read on the following… Let’s take an example… Assume You are seeking a used copy of 1937 USA m/s commemorating the 43rd Annual Convention of Society of Philatelic Americans. A textual description like this is pretty self-explaining. Year, country and issue. If anything else needs to be said, it’s pretty easy to add. The more complex the stamp, the more likely a textual description does only good for it.
But if you try to say the same with stamp catalog index numbers, it’s going to be one ugly mess you can’t translate without a specific stamp catalog. The US sheet above would be USA Block 8 in Michel. Or Scott #797. Or Yvert B7. Or Stanley Gibbons MS793… Digging up these numbers took me several minutes. And if you in weeks time ask me if I own US Yvert B7, very likely I will say no 
Just think about…The time anybody spends on seeking/translating specific catalogue number (and typing them), could very well be put on writing a textual inscription that anyone can understand. And everyone would benefit from it.
Now, tell me what do You think?
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Agree whole heartily. Simplicity and clarity are best.
The UPU and the WADP have developed a numbering system that is simple and straightforward (only back to 2002).
http://www.wnsstamps.ch/en/
I have never seen it used nor promoted, but it is a step in your direction.
If the online catalogues (Michel, SG) would allow for searches using text for issue description and fields for year, perforation, color, etc, then this could push us away from proprietary numbering systems forever.
Of course, a listing such as,
GB 1911 1p King George V, scarlet, Die B, perf 12, watermark…
is more expensive than “SG#332″ when listing in a dealer ad or an auction title. Abandoning the current system will become necessary at some point, but not until there is a more convenient system for inventory and resale.
@David… The WNS system has been planned as such NOT TO replace stamp catalogue index numbers; nor to be used by collectors. It’s just a tool UPU members, dealers etc. can use to differentiate non-legal issues from legal ones. Sadly it has never taken off as even UPU member states ignore it completely.
As for online catalogs, both Michel and SG allow free text search based on issue details. It’s not perfect, but still very usable (and getting better).
@David
“GB 1911 1p King George V, scarlet, Die B, perf 12, watermark…”
While Scott insists on denominating pre-decimal GB stamps as ‘p’ there will be confusion. Scott lists the Machin 1p in two forms (at least). One is olive the other maroon. Except that only one has the denomination 1p. Why does Scott do this to us?
@Keijo
Thanks for the further understanding of the WNS. I have only recently become aquainted with that system. Also, thanks for correcting me about the online catalogues. In Michel’s demo version, the search ability is quite limited, but the premium version does have extended search capability for color and denomination in addition to topic and year.
@ian – Norvic
Scott used to list the Machins within the regular postage area of the catalogue so it was less confusing even with the universal ‘p’ denomination since the sets were separated. I don’t recall why they switched the location of the Machins in the catalogue.
Sounds Ideal in an ideal world. Sadley, need I say more. You all have a great day Chris
Re; Universal description of stamps, describing a stamp when you are trying to find a stamp you need in a box of lets say Scott numbers, what use is the description. It is therefore better to have a Xref. for stamp numbers. The Xref. should include most popular cat. numbers, i.e. Michel, Scott, Borek, Gibbons etc. Other than that, one would be looking for hours and not finding what you look for.
Sincerely, Karl Hildebrandt
Hi Karl,
and thanks for the opinion. Just two simple questions…
1) What about the differences between different catalogs?
Take for example classic UK or modern Ghana. None of the major catalogs cannot even agree how many issues have been published – not to mention the varieties. What use is to have cross-reference that simply states that “no such stamp exists according to catalog Y”? And these would be far from being random isolated cases I fear.
2) Who on earth would have the time to create and maintain such listings – especially if going the scope of worldwide collector (meaning 500,000 up to 1,000,000 rows of data)?
Though catalog major numbers are not a moving target these days (at least in large extend), keeping track of possible (annual) changes would be a hobby of it’s own.
IMHO it’s simply much easier to write a description, and see what comes up.
with regards,
-keijo-
Hi Keijo,
It is after all up to each collector, of how he/she sets up a Xref chart. For my part, since my Albums for Germany are arranged using Michel numbers, and most dealers in Canada use Scott numbers, I need something that takes me to said Scott number in the dealers books or boxes. When it comes to specialized items, its up to myself to determine what the selection contains, since the dealers do not normally list subnumbers.If some collector wants to set up Xref’s for worldwide, good luck.
sincerely Karl Hildebrandt
Keijo,
1) Scott is a perfectly miserable numbering system, but like inches, decimal, and Dewey, a system that is too widely in use to expect it to be replaced–ever.
2) A descriptive system is too verbose; i.e., too prone to error, both accidental and deliberate. It’s a good try but a bad idea.
3) In one of your posts you estimated that it would take you 2 years of full-time work to enter all the stamps you wanted into a database. How long would it take if the only thing you had to enter was the Scott number? In other words, if you had a database that was populated with Michel numbers, to the best of my knowledge not copyrighted, you would only have to enter the Scott numbers.
3.1) For those more difficult numbers to figure out, it is not a copyright violation to exchange a limited amount of copyrighted data among friends such as the members of a group (read ‘blog’). All of the inquiries could even, legally, be posted in a common area. The key is ‘limit amount’.
4) I am a computer professional. I’m sure any number of the other members of the blog are as well. If we can’t find a good database, we could create one. I would be happy to be part of team of stamp collectors designing and creating a database that met the needs of all the members through total customization. This could be done in Excel using macros, data input screens, and filters. For more versatility it can be done in Visual Basic (the free MS Express version would do) or MS Access.
mikeySoft
@Karl,
is after all up to each collector, of how he/she sets up a Xref chart.
I agree entirely.
@mikeySoft
…but like inches, decimal, and Dewey, a system that is too widely in use to expect it to be replaced–ever.
I agree, again… This is precisely also one of the core reasons I would never attempt to create yet another numbering system. Any new numbering system would simply create more chaos than order.
A descriptive system is too verbose; i.e., too prone to error, both accidental and deliberate
Verbose yes. But I don’t think it’s not a bit more likely to have errors…
…with Michel numbers, to the best of my knowledge not copyrighted
AFAIK simple numbering systems (like 1,2,3…) can not be copyrighted in Europe (for the same reasons why You can not copyright common words like “coffee”, and then there’s also something known as copyright degeneration).
But Michel does have also something called as OMI (Original Michel Number) used in their digital products; and it is something I think Schwanberger has/could protect.
How long would it take if the only thing you had to enter was the Scott number?
Pick up a page from Scott, recreate the numbers in Excel or any other source, and then multiply the time taken with number of total pages… I’d assume it would be a long time too. LOL.
If we can’t find a good database, we could create one.
Personally I don’t believe that any solution as such would be a good one…
IMHO the solution would be to get publishers to open up and share their datasets. They already hold all the information catalogs provide in digital formats / databases. Now they would simply need to provide proper tools for collectors (and developers) to access that information (either for free or for $$$).
@mike I too am a developer and would be very interested in speaking to you. I am in Hanover at the minute with the old man visiting a stamp show. We are from the UK originally, so we have everything in SG, so now we are in Germany with money to burn and I’ve had to stay up all night putting Michel numbers on our wants list THERE NEEDS TO BE A BETTER SOLUTION!!! IMHO, numbering systems will not disappear until something like this is done. Once it is done, good luck trying to find the author of it – there are ways and means, I say we do this sooner rather than later!!!
…THERE NEEDS TO BE A BETTER SOLUTION!!!
I agree. Which is why I suggest dumping catalog numbers totally in the post above.
IMHO the second best alternative could be some sort of web based translation service (similar to Google and other search services). Ie. You put in a list of catalog id’s based on your favorite catalog, and the web service would translate them to matching numbers in some other catalog numbering space and return you the results.
It would have some problems though:
a) somebody should have to put in all the id’s (and subtypes, varieties etc) into database. This alone would be gigantic project (speaking from experience here – I’ve got over 600,000 record database full of Michel major numbers – if it contained all the varieties/subtypes, it would fetch over 2.4 million rows. And this is just for one catalog!!!).
b) Then somebody should have to map these with each other… This is where it would likely fall apart, or took decades to implement (even with help of online community). Lots of potential for errors etc.
c) Updates would be an issue… Catalog numbers can and will change occasionally. Keeping things updated would be an issue.
d) Copyrights… Likely this kind of service could bypass any copyright problems, but I’d definitely talk/hire some very good copyright lawyers.
e) Costs… And how to cover them… Development itself is cheap (especially if doing it for love for hobby, or using community help). But everything else would require some $$$.
Just some thoughts – feel free to take these further.
While we continue to support these catalogs, their individual catalog numbers will prevail.
I agree with Mike. If such a project was started and well supported many of these currently leading catalogers would be forced to fall into line – a big ask though.
I have been using an AUS catalog I made with stamps graphics shown as a comment but after 100 yrs the file is getting too large and sluggish to load. What is needed is one made in MS-Access which in itself makes a much better db system.
Mike, I wish you every success and I too would love to speak with you about such a project.
Keijo, I would hope that you would include my email address with this or at least pass it on to Mike.
many thanks.
Why limit to MS Access? Why not to use more powerful databases like MSSQL or MySQL as back engine..I use them both in my work / leisure, and they are much more efficient than Access if dealing with hundreds of thousands of records and large data.. If required, you can still use Access (and forms) as the front end; only the data sits on the “real database server”.
Email passed to Mike.
[Not a computer expert!] . . . but I also think it would be very useful to have some sort of computer program/website which could cross reference catalogue numbers from Scott to Yvert to Michel and so forth. But that would require the agreement and cooperation of these publishers. And since each publisher is protective of their own ancient numbering system, the very “product” which they need to protect the most, it’s not likely that this would happen. It would happen only if each publisher saw economic advantages in cross-referencing. In a dramatically declining stamp sales market, for example, “saving” the hobby might lead to cross-referencing. But I doubt it.
As for the time and labor to do this, it would most likely have to come from the publishers themselves. They would have to dedicate employees’ time to doing this, and I’m sure it would be very time consuming. So what economic benefits would they get out of doing this? I can’t quickly think of any as each publisher competes with the others, to some extent, and wants its own numbering system to “win” the competition.
I’m a little surprising to read here that ordinary cross referencing is illegal as I have seen a number of country lists of stamps which cross reference among two or three different catalogues. Maybe because these are lists of only a single country’s stamps, they fall under the “limited use” doctrine?
I wonder if words (and numbers) are becoming outdated, and maybe pictures are one way to go in cataloguing? If most collectors collect face-different stamps rather than “fly speck” varieties, then a picture catalogue (online for example) would suffice in helping to identify the stamp. But how to communicate this to a dealer from whom you want to buy that stamp? You’d still have to describe it or use one of the standard catalogue systems.
It is very frustrating to use an album organized by a catalogue you don’t normally use. Using European albums (Davo for example) in the U.S. and trying to match up Scott numbering and Scott ordering takes some extra effort. Since Scott insists its own ordering system is the best one and other catalogue publishers have their own system which seems ideal to them, we’re sort of stuck. I’ve never understood, for example, why semi-postals would be listed separately. With Belgium, which has an enormous number of them, it’s like having two separate listing for Belgian stamps, one is “normal” postage stamps, the other is all the semi-postals, but both lists are very long. Why not organize them by year date — which clearly seems like the most logical system?
But doing that, why not then include all mail and special stamps for that year, as well? This is the way I prefer to organize stamps — by year — since as a history teacher, I think historically, and I don’t want stamps from 1920s listed in three differently locations in my album. Another weakness of stamp numbering systems, in my opinion.
I’m afraid in the short run, we are stuck with different catalogue numbering systems from different countries. If you specialize in a country, it’s probably best to adopt that country’s catalogue right from the beginning, I think. Though that makes buying stamps in your own country much more difficult! All very confusing.
hi Keijo,
Nice thought Keijo. Long time ago during the development
of Linux( approx same period time) I was visiting a group
discussion for purpose of Open source Numbering system
for Stamps (Postage).
I agree wit Mike and Keith , Mile..
1. Though its easy to start with MS access … like Keijo
said it should be based on robust open source RDBMS
agree with Keijo MYSQL.
2. Most of the time Collector is sure of Country and year
Country use ISO alpha3
Year use XXXX (chars)
From here either XXX or XXXX
these are to be standardize (by Community)
for Section,Type,Categories,Series and Errors or Oddities etc.
Last Digits Could be serial number of Item in (database)
e.g. USA-1901-xx-xx-(1234..)
( Like ISBN numbers)
@Mike @Mile I agree with you sooner is better.
there are countries still using Lbs, Oz where
some have adopted in fifties Metric system.
Keijo give a push for the project.. please pass
my email address to Mile,Mike and Keith.
Thanks
tikithindi
@Drew … Lots of good ideas / questions.
True, these are plenty online and in real world. But I seriously doubt the legitimacy of most…On the other hand, it would extremely difficult for publishers to weed these out. What’s been placed online once, remains online forever. That’s the nature of Internet – in good and bad.
I’m sure a lot of (younger generation) general collectors would cheer for such a change, but… Dealers, specialists etc. would definitely despise such a change, as it would make referencing very difficult.
@tikithindi…
If You guys are serious about making this fly, I’d success you create a public project either on GoogleCode or SourceForge. That would enable new members to join in/out much more easily than me passing email addresses between interested parties.
I know I’ve written this before, but I’ll say this once again… Talk to (good) copyright lawyer first. Think together what you can use without getting into trouble, and how you are about to protect the project…. I’m not trying to be difficult or overprotective here, I’m just saying that cover your ass properly before heading onwards.
Hi Keijo,
Thanks for reply. I agree that it is not productive
passing email address. If separate group .. and they communicate
each other is the way.
All honesty I do not know much about GoogleCode and
Sourceforge. I will try and check it out.
I like your sound advice.
Love your blog..
:)
Thanks
tikithindi
Interesting idea, though perhaps academic as it’s unlikely ever to happen, and frankly I hope not. A concise, chronological numerical abbreviation is what makes keeping a database relatively easy. Personally I specialize, and the difference between stamps often comes down to perfing and/or colour shade and/or die number and/or printing method, etc. A textual description could fill a paragraph!
A related issue is that, in some cases, there’s no one-to-one correlation among catalogs. Scott might list three colour shades for an issue, whereas SG lists four and uses different colour descriptions! I’d be happy if the stamp world could just agree on the names of colors/shades!
Bob
I fall to understand why there is a difficulty following any catalogue designations. Where I found the difficulty was going from one catalogue to another. Because I collect Middle East and North Africa I have to use Scott (I live in North America), SG, Michel, Sasspne, Ceres, Yvert, Bale, Puluko and other specialized country catalogues. They are necessary as not all stamps are listed in every catalogue. I have a spred sheet for each country. I can sort by what ever catalogue I know the stamp number for and can immediately identify the same stamp in every other catalogue. All it takes is a little time to set up your own spred sheets. You can also use this to keep track of the stamps yoiu have and the stamps you need. Oh yes I set up my albums in chornological order.