Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
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I was a bit surprised to see that the digital set of catalogues should cost 549 dollars as an annual subscription whereas the paper version is 599 for which you get a catalogue that still works a year after purchasing it. The demo looks pretty good, but with such pricing it just isn't interesting. At least not for me.
As to your initial question: Amos writes about the classic world:
"This volume includes listings for the 350+ countries around the world where stamps were issued between the years of 1840-1940. Beginning with the first ever stamp issued in Great Britain in 1840, the Classic is the primary source for the issues of the first century of philately.
In contrast to the standard catalogs (volumes 1-6), this unique volume provides further insight and greatly expanded information on early worldwide issues in the form of expanded listings. Expanded listings range from color varieties to paper varieties to individual never-hinged issues.
The Scott Classic Specialized Catalogue is also a major source for listings and values for covers, multiples (including strips and blocks of four) for select countries, stamps without gum as well as used pairs."
Although it is not said explicitly, it would be strange if BOB material was not included. The US specialized does include more info for the US BOB stuff, of course.
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That sure is a lot of money.
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It is pretty expensive, but the advantage of being able to blow the font up to a readable size is mighty tempting. It's a struggle with these old eyes to read the paper catalogs any more, and it's a major pain to have to use a magnifier all the time. Also, it's accessible from any device no matter where you happen to be standing.
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we were looking at the digital catalogues for the club to help us lot a huge group of Australian material. it made sense UNTIL we saw that we were renting the catalogue for a year, after which we would have nothing.
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"it made sense UNTIL we saw that we were renting the catalogue for a year, after which we would have nothing."
Exactly.
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I agree. The definite pros (search function, not having to reserve half a metre of bookshelf space, high quality pictures) do not weigh up to the lease price. I'd rather buy a set of books, use it 10 years and then sell them again for 10 or 20% of the original price. That would cost me 54 dollars/year instead of 549... times 10 (not counting inflation and hoping that Amos will not go bankrupt)!
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I remember years back, perhaps 2010, Scott issued the catalogues on CDs. I liked them. Unfortunately for Scott they were easy to copy or extract the PDF files from. I am sure it hurt their hard copy catalogue sales for many years.
Larry
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I still have a copy of the 2009 pdf edition
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I digitized my entire philatelic library including Scott catalogs. It did take me a year or two (working in spare time) but I now have reclaimed over 40 feet of shelf space (now filled with stamp and cover albums). More importantly, I can instantly search everything in the entire library with a single search and often takes just seconds to find what I am looking for.
There were some fixed costs involved, I purchased a dedicated book scanner (around $300 US) and a 4TB external solid state hard drive ($199 US) to hold the library. I already had a good OCR application to convert the scanned images into searchable PDFs. Since I only update my catalogs every 15-20 years, I am not concerned about having to rescan the catalogs.
Overall, I think that I have already saved more time than I invested in digitizing the library.
Don
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Don could you tell us about the book scanner you bought. It's model number, brand and how good you feel it is. I have so many jobs a book scanner could do tied with a good OCR program. Here in Thailand we actually make a top end book scanner but it's library quality using two cameras and costs in the many thousands of dollars. Thanks, Danny
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Amazon Link
https://www.amazon.com/Plustek-OpticBook ...
Plustek Book Scanner OpticBook 3800L - $300 US
Platen (scanner glass) runs out to 6mm from edge, allows scanning right up to book binding. Software app automatically removes most shadows that are cast close to binding edge of book (so you do not have to damage book pressing the binding down). The app also has built-in OCR but I use a different app (Abbyy OCR). The scanner can perform as a 'general scanner' but note that it only scans up to 300 dpi. This is fine for the vast majority of book scanning since doing it in a higher resolutions results in huge sized PDF files.
I use another scanner (Epson V850Pro) when I need to scan something (i.e. stamp or cover) in much higher resolution. At my house, the Plustek is used specifically as book/magazine scanner. My wife and I are closing in on 2 million philatelic pages digitized with most of them available publicly. (For example, we recently scanned and OCRed the entire 1100 volumes of American Air Mail Society ‘Air Post Journal’ going back to 1929. These are freely available to download for everyone on the AAMS website.) So we have the Plustek book scanner setup as a standalone scanning station with a dedicated PC. But it a USB cabled scanner so setting it up for occasional scanning is straight forward if desired.
Plustek has other book scanning models, the one above is their lowest priced solution. And as Danny notes above, there are other manufacturers who also have various model book scanners at different price ranges.
Don
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Don, I hope you don't mind me asking another question. Between the Plustek Book Scanner and the Abbyy OCR how many mistakes do you find them making on standard printed text. I know 'standard' is meaningless, but I'm thinking about book text between 10 and 12 point. (I am a very bad proof reader as my brain tends to correct errors without telling me
Thanks, Danny
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Amos Media have been wading in and out of the digital realm trying to maintain or improve their declining revenue from catalog sales. My guess is they are trying not to maintain prior year digital copies as well as have a living verison (always up to date version) and get away from the annual editions especially for digital.
They claimed they are just following other software models but even Microsoft allows a single purchase version rather than the 365 version.
My need is for an image identifier and Colnect meets those needs because it is in a database so you can sort by year, demonionation, etc.
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Hi Danny,
No worries.
Abbyy is a stand-alone Windows application with a sole purpose in life; OCR. It has superior OCR algorithms and outperforms every other OCR app that I have ever worked with; it typically recognizes 99.2% accuracy. It has a built-in proofing editor which allows you to make corrects before saving the OCR output.
As you can see in the image below (right click image and select 'Open in new tab' to see full size image) from a stamp book I OCRed yesterday (from Plustek scanner); the Abbyy accuracy % is displayed on the left for each page. Many are 100%, most are around 99%. The ‘misses’ are thing s like the page show where the paragraph started with a fancy font for the Y of the word You. You might notice one page with a low accuracy of 27%. That page is actually a hand drawn image with cursive writing on it, hence the very low accuracy.
Of course, OCR accuracy depends upon the quality of the original source. Scanning a highly faded page or something like an old Mimeograph page can lower the accuracy. Abbyy also has great features like being able to split all ‘facing’ pages in a single step (i.e. scanned images of a book opened flat on a scanner and each scan has two facing pages). It also can automatically rotate pages for book which have both vertical and horizontal pages. It recognizes and can format things like tables in a book, and makes them easy to save as Excel spreadsheets if desired. You can read more about it on their website.
I purchased Abbyy back when they offered the app with full ownership. Unfortunately, they now only ‘rent’ the app and you can only get it by subscription. Some folks might not see this as a downside but I always rather to own the application because I am an old fart who is sometimes stuck in my ways.
Don
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Thanks Don. In the past with typewritten manuscripts I had problems with punctuation marks. I do wonder if AI is going to start entering the OCR field. In the Thai language we have over and under scripts that prove difficult with Thai OCR. I did at one time send books out for scanning and OCR before formatting them as eBook editions. If I can clear my present backlog of new books I may try a Plustek scanner as they have an agent in Bangkok. The very expensive book scanners made in Thailand were the Atiz brand, but their website isn't working so maybe they are no more. Very much out of my league anyway. I was hoping to persuade a university library to rent me time on one a few years ago.
That website did eventually work so you can see why they are so expensive. Here it is - https://www.atiz.com/
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I find their new digital "renting" model outrageous, but at least it's better than the last time they changed their digital architecture and made all the old catalogs I had downloaded unusable and I was forced to buy another digital set.... I have 2016s and 2020s in the old format but it is only a matter of time until Scott will no longer support those either. I am so used to the digital catalogues I really do not wish to go back to print which is what they would force me to do. I used to get catalogs every four years, so to me the annual 'rental' being 1/3rd or even 1/2 of the physical catalog price would be a more reasonable price point. I did break down and get a subscription to the the Classic as those are the most critical stamps price-wise anyway, and use my online 2020s for everything else. I recently saw publication figures for Linn's and that they appear to be declining. I'd love to see the sales figures for rental versus the old purchase to own digital model.
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Jay Bigalke talks about the Scott catalogs. He mentions a desire to get rid of the printed edition.
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I hope that they don’t get rid of the printed copies. I can’t be going back and forth from my albums to a computer. My 2017 U.S. is well used and indispensable for identifying stamps.
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My issue with what Scott is doing is the pricing of the digital catalogs. It's forcing digital buyers to essentially buy the catalog every year (the set of 6 from Amos is $690; they are selling sets of 2023 for $599, and the digital is $549 for all 6 volumes - a whopping 20% discount!). And yes the digital catalog has some value-adds.... but not worth what Scott is asking IMO.
Yvert & Tellier's digital catalogs are 129 Euro for an annual subscription for ALL their catalogs. Michel's offering is 19.80 Euro a month. Gibbons has something called 'My Collection' which is driven from the Gibbons Stamps of the World Catalogue for 39.95 pounds a year. Scott's pricing as compared to this is outrageous. How many will spend over $500 a year just to have access to current catalogs - and if they eliminate print, you'll have a lot of people either just using their old catalogs with outdated prices or giving up on the hobby altogether.
I would not be surprised, given the very low percentages of catalog many stamps sell for online, Scott making another 'adjustment' to 'retail' as they did in 1988-1990.
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Why does one want a new catalog every year. I am not sure who is collecting all the modern issues especially from the stamp prolific issuing companies (oops...countries) and the prices do not change significatly year to year for most issues?
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I am of the opinion that the overwhelming majority of new catalog buyers each year are the bigger stamp dealers.
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Libraries must buy a lot of catalogs too. When I go to my local public library I can always find up to date catalogs.
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I just found data that is in the 2020 Standard catalogue that is not in the 2024 Specialized (Worldwide) catalog. I wonder if this somehow occurred in the reformatting to the new digital layout. This is Yugoslavia, while the regular issues show both hinged and never hinged set prices, the never hinged prices are missing from the semi-postal sets in the 2024 Specialized. (They are present for all but a few cheap sets in the 2020 Standard).
Curious if anyone has the 2024 Standard Volume 6 (print or digital) and if the values are missing in either of those.
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I bought a 2022 set of Scott catalogues that was missing 1A and 1B. (US and some "A" countries. With my bid and shipping, I paid under $200. I didn't really need the 1A and B books but today I broke down and bought a set of the 2023 1A and 1B.
So I got a full set for under $250. Yeah...it's not the newest set available but I'm also not relying on these for a stamp reselling business.
Mike
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I did an analysis some years back of the price changes in Scott over a 5 year time frame (for one specific area I collect..in this case Europa).
They use a fairly simple program to adjust and vary stamp prices from year to year. So exact references to Scott Catalog prices is meaningless. Prices are mechanically altered, usually in the 10% range and seemingly randomly.
Unless they physically redo a specific country, which they do occasionally when it is clear their pricing base is way off, one can easily refer to Scott Catalog prices from older issues without much concern.
Pricing a digital issue at nearly the price of the paper issue is ridiculous. Amazon has understood that long time ago. They are killing their own Scott Catalog business. If you want to make it an annual subscription rate, you must price it low.
If Amos wanted to make money, they need to change dramatically, such as offering (my thoughts) a print on demand, on Scott paper, by the page of their Specialty albums. Or selling country specific catalogs. Or selling Annual updates of the NEW material only. With print on demand, it is fairly easy to do (see Amazon for self published books).
rrr...
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A while back I did a study of prices in a Scott graded report to see if I could see a trend. The table on left is from catalog and the table on right takes the VF value and makes it 1. Then I compared the ratio of value from centering to VF value.
I always wondered how many data points there were for a C15 in VG condition to determine the price.
The mint predictor row is an average. As so you can see, the next grade up or down seems to follow a trend. Is it market driven or based upon setting a trend.
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I believe that Amos uses print on demand for most if not all of the US National supplements and albums. Not sure how complicated and costly it would be to print and sell each page separately. I see that the National supplement for 2016 is 16 pages and costs $21.60 (on sale) plus shipping. With the high speed copiers used to do the printing, it would take almost the same amount of time to print the supplement as it would to print a single page. What would be a fair price for one to buy just Page 4? Plus shipping.
I personally think that the pricing for album annual supplements is already too high.
Tad
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The intellectual property value contributes to the price and doing one page likely involves a setup charge. There is the packaging expense (sleeve, chipboard for protection).
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Shipping paper is obsolete, when you could transfer files electronically and print (on location) as needed.
Catalog and Album manufacturers all face a declining market and should adjust quickly to the technological transition occurring now, or they will get out of business. Paying a fee for the intellectual property and labor to program, and to deliver custom orders electronically makes sense, but paying over $1 per page for the paper product is not viable long term.
With AI it will be easy to design pages encompassing the range and details one wants and printing custom made pages.
rrr...
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You want UberAlbum....you end up paying uber, the seller (say someone licensed locally to print pages for you), and the driver separately. 
The main rub for most is the page size.
But say, they send the page images to Kinko's to they print for you. I bet the pages would still cost $10 to $15 (similar logic as the Scott digital catalog prices).
If it were not for Steiner's page, I would not be collecting worldwide stamps in albums. This is also why I abandoned Scott National for US since the supplments were getting expensive along with keeping them in Scott National binders and slipcases. In the 90's they were often sending updated pages (adding stamps, etc) in each supplement so you ended up throwing away some of the prior year page so have to remount.
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Blank Scott Specialty paper is available for about $.50 per page. If you have a wide format printer, you can print your own pages to order. There are several sources of pdf album page files including Bill Steiner's website or Clive's website for illustrated albums.
https://www.thestampweb.com/albums/free- ...
If you are willing to trim the paper and print your own borders, you can get acid free, lignin free 12x12 inch paper at Michael's (craft store) at $.20 per sheet.
If anyone is interested in learning how to reformat letter or A4 size pdf files for printing on Specialty size paper, please contact me. I can also help you remove existing borders from pdf pages.
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I use LibreOffice Draw to edit PDFs. Very easy to edit pages (relayout), change page size,etc.
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I'm thinking about subscribing to one or more of these. Has anybody used them? Does the Classic World cover BOB stuff, or would I need to buy the US Specialized as well?
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
I was a bit surprised to see that the digital set of catalogues should cost 549 dollars as an annual subscription whereas the paper version is 599 for which you get a catalogue that still works a year after purchasing it. The demo looks pretty good, but with such pricing it just isn't interesting. At least not for me.
As to your initial question: Amos writes about the classic world:
"This volume includes listings for the 350+ countries around the world where stamps were issued between the years of 1840-1940. Beginning with the first ever stamp issued in Great Britain in 1840, the Classic is the primary source for the issues of the first century of philately.
In contrast to the standard catalogs (volumes 1-6), this unique volume provides further insight and greatly expanded information on early worldwide issues in the form of expanded listings. Expanded listings range from color varieties to paper varieties to individual never-hinged issues.
The Scott Classic Specialized Catalogue is also a major source for listings and values for covers, multiples (including strips and blocks of four) for select countries, stamps without gum as well as used pairs."
Although it is not said explicitly, it would be strange if BOB material was not included. The US specialized does include more info for the US BOB stuff, of course.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
That sure is a lot of money.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
It is pretty expensive, but the advantage of being able to blow the font up to a readable size is mighty tempting. It's a struggle with these old eyes to read the paper catalogs any more, and it's a major pain to have to use a magnifier all the time. Also, it's accessible from any device no matter where you happen to be standing.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
we were looking at the digital catalogues for the club to help us lot a huge group of Australian material. it made sense UNTIL we saw that we were renting the catalogue for a year, after which we would have nothing.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
"it made sense UNTIL we saw that we were renting the catalogue for a year, after which we would have nothing."
Exactly.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
I agree. The definite pros (search function, not having to reserve half a metre of bookshelf space, high quality pictures) do not weigh up to the lease price. I'd rather buy a set of books, use it 10 years and then sell them again for 10 or 20% of the original price. That would cost me 54 dollars/year instead of 549... times 10 (not counting inflation and hoping that Amos will not go bankrupt)!
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
I remember years back, perhaps 2010, Scott issued the catalogues on CDs. I liked them. Unfortunately for Scott they were easy to copy or extract the PDF files from. I am sure it hurt their hard copy catalogue sales for many years.
Larry
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
I still have a copy of the 2009 pdf edition
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
I digitized my entire philatelic library including Scott catalogs. It did take me a year or two (working in spare time) but I now have reclaimed over 40 feet of shelf space (now filled with stamp and cover albums). More importantly, I can instantly search everything in the entire library with a single search and often takes just seconds to find what I am looking for.
There were some fixed costs involved, I purchased a dedicated book scanner (around $300 US) and a 4TB external solid state hard drive ($199 US) to hold the library. I already had a good OCR application to convert the scanned images into searchable PDFs. Since I only update my catalogs every 15-20 years, I am not concerned about having to rescan the catalogs.
Overall, I think that I have already saved more time than I invested in digitizing the library.
Don
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
Don could you tell us about the book scanner you bought. It's model number, brand and how good you feel it is. I have so many jobs a book scanner could do tied with a good OCR program. Here in Thailand we actually make a top end book scanner but it's library quality using two cameras and costs in the many thousands of dollars. Thanks, Danny
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
Amazon Link
https://www.amazon.com/Plustek-OpticBook ...
Plustek Book Scanner OpticBook 3800L - $300 US
Platen (scanner glass) runs out to 6mm from edge, allows scanning right up to book binding. Software app automatically removes most shadows that are cast close to binding edge of book (so you do not have to damage book pressing the binding down). The app also has built-in OCR but I use a different app (Abbyy OCR). The scanner can perform as a 'general scanner' but note that it only scans up to 300 dpi. This is fine for the vast majority of book scanning since doing it in a higher resolutions results in huge sized PDF files.
I use another scanner (Epson V850Pro) when I need to scan something (i.e. stamp or cover) in much higher resolution. At my house, the Plustek is used specifically as book/magazine scanner. My wife and I are closing in on 2 million philatelic pages digitized with most of them available publicly. (For example, we recently scanned and OCRed the entire 1100 volumes of American Air Mail Society ‘Air Post Journal’ going back to 1929. These are freely available to download for everyone on the AAMS website.) So we have the Plustek book scanner setup as a standalone scanning station with a dedicated PC. But it a USB cabled scanner so setting it up for occasional scanning is straight forward if desired.
Plustek has other book scanning models, the one above is their lowest priced solution. And as Danny notes above, there are other manufacturers who also have various model book scanners at different price ranges.
Don
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
Don, I hope you don't mind me asking another question. Between the Plustek Book Scanner and the Abbyy OCR how many mistakes do you find them making on standard printed text. I know 'standard' is meaningless, but I'm thinking about book text between 10 and 12 point. (I am a very bad proof reader as my brain tends to correct errors without telling me
Thanks, Danny
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
Amos Media have been wading in and out of the digital realm trying to maintain or improve their declining revenue from catalog sales. My guess is they are trying not to maintain prior year digital copies as well as have a living verison (always up to date version) and get away from the annual editions especially for digital.
They claimed they are just following other software models but even Microsoft allows a single purchase version rather than the 365 version.
My need is for an image identifier and Colnect meets those needs because it is in a database so you can sort by year, demonionation, etc.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
Hi Danny,
No worries.
Abbyy is a stand-alone Windows application with a sole purpose in life; OCR. It has superior OCR algorithms and outperforms every other OCR app that I have ever worked with; it typically recognizes 99.2% accuracy. It has a built-in proofing editor which allows you to make corrects before saving the OCR output.
As you can see in the image below (right click image and select 'Open in new tab' to see full size image) from a stamp book I OCRed yesterday (from Plustek scanner); the Abbyy accuracy % is displayed on the left for each page. Many are 100%, most are around 99%. The ‘misses’ are thing s like the page show where the paragraph started with a fancy font for the Y of the word You. You might notice one page with a low accuracy of 27%. That page is actually a hand drawn image with cursive writing on it, hence the very low accuracy.
Of course, OCR accuracy depends upon the quality of the original source. Scanning a highly faded page or something like an old Mimeograph page can lower the accuracy. Abbyy also has great features like being able to split all ‘facing’ pages in a single step (i.e. scanned images of a book opened flat on a scanner and each scan has two facing pages). It also can automatically rotate pages for book which have both vertical and horizontal pages. It recognizes and can format things like tables in a book, and makes them easy to save as Excel spreadsheets if desired. You can read more about it on their website.
I purchased Abbyy back when they offered the app with full ownership. Unfortunately, they now only ‘rent’ the app and you can only get it by subscription. Some folks might not see this as a downside but I always rather to own the application because I am an old fart who is sometimes stuck in my ways.
Don
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
Thanks Don. In the past with typewritten manuscripts I had problems with punctuation marks. I do wonder if AI is going to start entering the OCR field. In the Thai language we have over and under scripts that prove difficult with Thai OCR. I did at one time send books out for scanning and OCR before formatting them as eBook editions. If I can clear my present backlog of new books I may try a Plustek scanner as they have an agent in Bangkok. The very expensive book scanners made in Thailand were the Atiz brand, but their website isn't working so maybe they are no more. Very much out of my league anyway. I was hoping to persuade a university library to rent me time on one a few years ago.
That website did eventually work so you can see why they are so expensive. Here it is - https://www.atiz.com/
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
I find their new digital "renting" model outrageous, but at least it's better than the last time they changed their digital architecture and made all the old catalogs I had downloaded unusable and I was forced to buy another digital set.... I have 2016s and 2020s in the old format but it is only a matter of time until Scott will no longer support those either. I am so used to the digital catalogues I really do not wish to go back to print which is what they would force me to do. I used to get catalogs every four years, so to me the annual 'rental' being 1/3rd or even 1/2 of the physical catalog price would be a more reasonable price point. I did break down and get a subscription to the the Classic as those are the most critical stamps price-wise anyway, and use my online 2020s for everything else. I recently saw publication figures for Linn's and that they appear to be declining. I'd love to see the sales figures for rental versus the old purchase to own digital model.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
Jay Bigalke talks about the Scott catalogs. He mentions a desire to get rid of the printed edition.
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08:07:24am
re: Scott Digital Catalogs
I hope that they don’t get rid of the printed copies. I can’t be going back and forth from my albums to a computer. My 2017 U.S. is well used and indispensable for identifying stamps.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
My issue with what Scott is doing is the pricing of the digital catalogs. It's forcing digital buyers to essentially buy the catalog every year (the set of 6 from Amos is $690; they are selling sets of 2023 for $599, and the digital is $549 for all 6 volumes - a whopping 20% discount!). And yes the digital catalog has some value-adds.... but not worth what Scott is asking IMO.
Yvert & Tellier's digital catalogs are 129 Euro for an annual subscription for ALL their catalogs. Michel's offering is 19.80 Euro a month. Gibbons has something called 'My Collection' which is driven from the Gibbons Stamps of the World Catalogue for 39.95 pounds a year. Scott's pricing as compared to this is outrageous. How many will spend over $500 a year just to have access to current catalogs - and if they eliminate print, you'll have a lot of people either just using their old catalogs with outdated prices or giving up on the hobby altogether.
I would not be surprised, given the very low percentages of catalog many stamps sell for online, Scott making another 'adjustment' to 'retail' as they did in 1988-1990.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
Why does one want a new catalog every year. I am not sure who is collecting all the modern issues especially from the stamp prolific issuing companies (oops...countries) and the prices do not change significatly year to year for most issues?
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
I am of the opinion that the overwhelming majority of new catalog buyers each year are the bigger stamp dealers.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
Libraries must buy a lot of catalogs too. When I go to my local public library I can always find up to date catalogs.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
I just found data that is in the 2020 Standard catalogue that is not in the 2024 Specialized (Worldwide) catalog. I wonder if this somehow occurred in the reformatting to the new digital layout. This is Yugoslavia, while the regular issues show both hinged and never hinged set prices, the never hinged prices are missing from the semi-postal sets in the 2024 Specialized. (They are present for all but a few cheap sets in the 2020 Standard).
Curious if anyone has the 2024 Standard Volume 6 (print or digital) and if the values are missing in either of those.
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09:54:50pm
re: Scott Digital Catalogs
I bought a 2022 set of Scott catalogues that was missing 1A and 1B. (US and some "A" countries. With my bid and shipping, I paid under $200. I didn't really need the 1A and B books but today I broke down and bought a set of the 2023 1A and 1B.
So I got a full set for under $250. Yeah...it's not the newest set available but I'm also not relying on these for a stamp reselling business.
Mike
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
I did an analysis some years back of the price changes in Scott over a 5 year time frame (for one specific area I collect..in this case Europa).
They use a fairly simple program to adjust and vary stamp prices from year to year. So exact references to Scott Catalog prices is meaningless. Prices are mechanically altered, usually in the 10% range and seemingly randomly.
Unless they physically redo a specific country, which they do occasionally when it is clear their pricing base is way off, one can easily refer to Scott Catalog prices from older issues without much concern.
Pricing a digital issue at nearly the price of the paper issue is ridiculous. Amazon has understood that long time ago. They are killing their own Scott Catalog business. If you want to make it an annual subscription rate, you must price it low.
If Amos wanted to make money, they need to change dramatically, such as offering (my thoughts) a print on demand, on Scott paper, by the page of their Specialty albums. Or selling country specific catalogs. Or selling Annual updates of the NEW material only. With print on demand, it is fairly easy to do (see Amazon for self published books).
rrr...
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
A while back I did a study of prices in a Scott graded report to see if I could see a trend. The table on left is from catalog and the table on right takes the VF value and makes it 1. Then I compared the ratio of value from centering to VF value.
I always wondered how many data points there were for a C15 in VG condition to determine the price.
The mint predictor row is an average. As so you can see, the next grade up or down seems to follow a trend. Is it market driven or based upon setting a trend.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
I believe that Amos uses print on demand for most if not all of the US National supplements and albums. Not sure how complicated and costly it would be to print and sell each page separately. I see that the National supplement for 2016 is 16 pages and costs $21.60 (on sale) plus shipping. With the high speed copiers used to do the printing, it would take almost the same amount of time to print the supplement as it would to print a single page. What would be a fair price for one to buy just Page 4? Plus shipping.
I personally think that the pricing for album annual supplements is already too high.
Tad
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
The intellectual property value contributes to the price and doing one page likely involves a setup charge. There is the packaging expense (sleeve, chipboard for protection).
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
Shipping paper is obsolete, when you could transfer files electronically and print (on location) as needed.
Catalog and Album manufacturers all face a declining market and should adjust quickly to the technological transition occurring now, or they will get out of business. Paying a fee for the intellectual property and labor to program, and to deliver custom orders electronically makes sense, but paying over $1 per page for the paper product is not viable long term.
With AI it will be easy to design pages encompassing the range and details one wants and printing custom made pages.
rrr...
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
You want UberAlbum....you end up paying uber, the seller (say someone licensed locally to print pages for you), and the driver separately. The main rub for most is the page size.
But say, they send the page images to Kinko's to they print for you. I bet the pages would still cost $10 to $15 (similar logic as the Scott digital catalog prices).
If it were not for Steiner's page, I would not be collecting worldwide stamps in albums. This is also why I abandoned Scott National for US since the supplments were getting expensive along with keeping them in Scott National binders and slipcases. In the 90's they were often sending updated pages (adding stamps, etc) in each supplement so you ended up throwing away some of the prior year page so have to remount.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
Blank Scott Specialty paper is available for about $.50 per page. If you have a wide format printer, you can print your own pages to order. There are several sources of pdf album page files including Bill Steiner's website or Clive's website for illustrated albums.
https://www.thestampweb.com/albums/free- ...
If you are willing to trim the paper and print your own borders, you can get acid free, lignin free 12x12 inch paper at Michael's (craft store) at $.20 per sheet.
If anyone is interested in learning how to reformat letter or A4 size pdf files for printing on Specialty size paper, please contact me. I can also help you remove existing borders from pdf pages.
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re: Scott Digital Catalogs
I use LibreOffice Draw to edit PDFs. Very easy to edit pages (relayout), change page size,etc.
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