Comments on: How to create perfect cross-references between Scott, Michel, Stanley Gibbons etc. stamp catalogue – legally

By: Richard Barnes

Richard Barnes — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:42:16 +0000

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.

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:12:43 +0000

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

By: tikithindi

tikithindi — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:11:41 +0000

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

By: Keijo

Keijo — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 10:27:23 +0000

@Drew … Lots of good ideas / questions.

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?

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 wonder if words (and numbers) are becoming outdated, and maybe pictures are one way to go in cataloguing?

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…

Keijo give a push for the project..

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.

By: tikithindi

tikithindi — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 02:58:21 +0000

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