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Post by Ted Talks Stamps on Apr 29, 2023 17:43:28 GMT
I have been boycotting all Amos Media products, since they went to their new overpriced subscription model for the Scott Catalogue. For someone who wants only a print catalogue of US stamps with no concern for their fantasy “stamp values,” is their any appreciable difference between Harris and Brookman, besides price? Anybody have a preference for one over the other?
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Post by purrfin on Apr 29, 2023 19:33:42 GMT
Even though I have both Harris (2005) and Brookman (2009) as well as The Postal Service Guide to US Stamps (32nd Edition) I never really used them. I always leaned towards Scott's. The one thing I do like about all three catalogs is they are spiral bound. Makes it easier to look for stamps. The USPS cat. has color pictures and H and B have black and white.
Just opening to any random page in Brookman I landed on Scott #3812 used .30; Harris for the same stamp is .25; Scott's is .25; all about the same price.
Is that what you were looking for?
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Post by khj on Apr 29, 2023 19:37:25 GMT
Harris and Brookman are both primarily pricelists rather than what I consider true catalogs. Scott will have a ton more information, and the stamp illustrations are paired with the listing/set. The pricelists tend to have a whole bunch of stamps pictured together/labeled, followed by a whole section of listings.
If you are familiar with the catalog numbers, that's really not a problem. But the lack of detailed info will be missing if you need that. Minkus is now out-dated, and they didn't use Scott numbers.
Do you collect new US issues? If not, I simply get used catalogs. Since Amos quit doing the clearance/closeout/damaged listings, I only buy used Scott catalogs.
I originally had a charter lifetime digital subscription to Linn's. A decade later, I learned that "lifetime" meant the lifetime of the program, not my lifetime. If they had simply apologized and admitted they reneged on their original offer, I would have let it go. Instead, they tried to get me to pay for annual subscription. In the past, Linn's was notorious (at least with me) for walking back offers. Not a big fan of teeze and squeeze. They've done it too many times over the decades, so I finally gave up on Amos 10 years ago. Welcome to the club.
But in all fairness, they would have some amazing offers. In addition to charter lifetime digital subscription, I used to be able to get the outgoing year Scott WW catalog sets for $100-$120 (that's including shipping!). Those days are gone, as well as my direct purchases from Amos.
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Post by khj on Apr 29, 2023 19:42:00 GMT
Funny part is, for brief while, large complete digital sections of the Brookman catalog used to available from their website free. Apparently, a lot of people didn't know about it. It was buried in a secondary page. I wasn't diligent about downloading them at that time since I already had print Brookmans. I think all I downloaded was maybe the Trust Territories section? Oh well...
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Post by khj on Apr 29, 2023 19:53:43 GMT
Sometime this weekend, I'll try to take a screenshot of one of the Brookman pdf sections, to better illustrate.
I don't have any of my Harris catalogs digitized, and I'm pretty sure they are hidden in one of my archive boxes somewhere. Sorry.
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Post by philatarium on Apr 30, 2023 3:31:50 GMT
I've never seen it, and not a huge fan of them, but doesn't Mystic's catalog use Scott numbers? Isn't it supposed to be well-illustrated? The added bonus is that their prices would be even more fantastical than Scott's
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Post by khj on Apr 30, 2023 4:15:52 GMT
Good point, Dave! The Mystic catalog is the best free catalog, for sure. It was great as a lightweight illustrated checklist at the shows when I was just trying to fill in gaps in my collection. However, it is a very simplified catalog that has illustrations of just about all the face-different stamps. Very little information other than basic one-line information. And it only covers the major catalog numbers and the very basics of BoB listings (e.g., no revenues, no stationery). But hey, for the price of mailing back approvals, it's free. I think there was a pdf at one time, but they probably quickly realized that was self-defeating for promoting their approval service.
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angore
Junior Member
Posts: 75
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Post by angore on Apr 30, 2023 10:22:44 GMT
The PDF of the Brookman price list is at www.brookmanstamps.com/2017-18US.pdfI do not think a US price list is a real issue since many dealers. It is the worldwide stamps where Scott or any catalog become useful, There is Colnect.
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Post by philatarium on Apr 30, 2023 13:10:57 GMT
Thanks for filling in the details about the Mystic catalog, Kim. I had no idea ...
(Also realizing that I need to get an image up on my profile.)
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Post by khj on Apr 30, 2023 18:40:46 GMT
Thanks angore, saves me the trouble of screenshots of the pdf. The pricelist, is for the most part the same or sections of the Brookman catalog -- which was originally was a pricelist anyway. Don't know if they still do this, but there used to be coupons in the Brookman so that if you bought enough stamps from them, the coupon savings would make up for the cost of the catalog. Of course, back then, the Brookman was ~$10 back in the 1990s when was first introduced to the Brookman by a dealer who was selling stamps based on a discount off Brookman prices. I soon found out the reason (not because Brookman would break down VF and F-VF prices, but because Brookman prices were in general higher than Scott for the mid-range stamps!
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Post by Ted Talks Stamps on Apr 30, 2023 18:50:08 GMT
Actually, I don’t even know why I posed this question to begin with. I have a print copy of the 2012 Scott, and I decided I was tired of having it taking up precious shelf space, and besides, I have a 2017 on disc (somewhere I haven’t been able to find) plus a bunch of country sections of various years, from Chirokmd, on ebay. And then there’s my print version of the WW Classic. So, I started ripping out sections of the 2012 which are not covered in the Classic and for which I haven’t purchased Chirok pages. And it struck me, as I was ripping apart Vol. 1 - Helloooo. There’s a US catalogue, you dummy. So what, if it only goes up to 2010. It’s better than spending $30-40 on a Harris or Brookman. So, forget I asked.
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Post by khj on Apr 30, 2023 19:02:38 GMT
Forget you asked what?
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Post by purrfin on Apr 30, 2023 19:11:47 GMT
I have no clue what you said, and who are you anyway?
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Post by Ted Talks Stamps on Apr 30, 2023 20:26:05 GMT
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Post by ClassicPhilatelist on May 1, 2023 0:42:47 GMT
Brookman has one really useful feature. They group all the Scott numbers under a single design (Scott designated design). This is crazy useful for FWs because you have all the possible major listings for a single design. It was instrumental in my putting together the FW Matrix actually. This is crazy useful for lots of other listings. I have a single Brookman 2014 for exactly this reason.
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