5. Restore stamps dropped in later revisions
There are literally hundreds of stamps that were in the 1947 version that disappeared when Volume 1 was split into two parts. Some of these were restored in the four part version, but there are still ones missing. While many of these are Back-of-the-Book issues, some are later regular issues and commemoratives.
An example of an entire page that has gone AWOL is the one containing 33 spaces covering Austrian Military stamps from 1915-1917 (K.U.K. FELDPOST). The page was in the 1947 edition but had disappeared by 1969 and wasn't restored in the 2008 reprint.
6. Give the Indian Convention States Their Own Spaces
Scott departs from providing for specific stamps in the Convention States of India instead giving collectors a single page labeled at the top
Stamps of British India overprinted for use in the Convention States Chama Faridkot Gwalior Jhind Nabha Patiala |
The page is blank below these headings. I think Scott intended that stamps for the States be mounted in rows vertically below the appropriate headings.
By Palmer's calculation there are some 250 inexpensive Convention States that a collector might acquire that deserve to have their own pages. With some work, I bet most of these could be accommodated in just two pages front and back.
At one time Scott treated the so-called Feudatory States the same way, but by the 1947 edition, at least, the larger of these had their own identified spaces. However, there are easily acquired Feudatory States stamps that also deserve better coverage.
7. Add inexpensive stamps that have never been in the Blue International
There are well over a thousand stamps that fall within the scope of the International but, for whatever, reason never made it into the album. In a few cases, the omissions are perplexing: for example, why are there no spaces for the omnibus 1935 British Coronation issues for Ascension, Barbados, Gilbert & Ellice Islands, Mauritius, St. Helena and the Solomon Islands?
The largest concentrations of missing issues according to Palmer's study are from Austria, China, Columbia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Turkey. Some of these were originally in the 1947 edition; others have never been blessed with a space.
8. Remove stamps that are no longer in the Scott Catalog
Perhaps a few dozen stamps that were in the Scott Catalogs when the Internationals were originally published are no longer given catalog numbers. According to Palmer, this includes Armenia's 1920 pictorials, Latvia's 1919 Russian Occupation issue, Spain's 1928-1938 Postal Tax Stamps (?), Ukraine's 1920 pictorials, and the Upper Silesia 1921 Occupation issues (?). Since none of these are particularly expensive, removing them might not be worth the trouble although the process might free up space for missing issues that are in the catalog.
9. Add Scott Catalog Numbers to every cut or description
If this list were in priority order, putting a Scott number with every stamp would be right after keeping the album in print. One of the frustrations with the Internationals is that too many of the descriptions and sometimes even the cuts are inadequate to accurately identify the correct stamp. Even with the Scott catalog, you occasionally are playing a guessing game with the editors. This seems to me to be a win-win scenario for Scott because even knowing the Scott numbers, you'll still need to have their catalog.
Albums with catalog numbers has been done before. Later editions of the Minkus Master and Supreme Global albums incorporated Minkus catalog numbers for every stamps. Even Scott included numbers in their short lived Grand Award world album and in some of their Speciality Albums.
I bet Scott no longer has any record of which stamps are in the International. If the company is interested in correcting mistakes, adding or restoring missing issues, etc., they are going to need to perform this process internally, any way.
If it is too expensive to add catalog numbers to all of the International pages, what about including a notation directly in the Scott Classics Catalog? An advantage of this approach is that it would be easier to change numbers in the catalog than in the album. For example, a notation e.g. [I] could be added directly to the listings themselves:
6 A3 3s red & silver [I] 15.00 2.75
If Scott doesn't want to muddle their catalog entries, perhaps the information could be included in an Appendix. Depending upon the formatting, this would also take care of the tenth item on my wishlist. I would even forgive them if they wanted to publish the listing separately to help defray the cost.
10. Give Collectors a Checklist
As long as I am wishing for the moon, what about publishing a checklist that would make it a breeze to maintain our wantlists, collection inventory, etc.? Ideally, this would be online a la Stanley Gibbon's My Collection service, but I'm easy.
11. Add British Commonwealth Stamps 1940-1952
This would further bring the Blue International into parity with the Classic Specialized Catalogue, and, I would hazard, not be difficult or expensive for Scott to accomplish. After all, the required pages already exist in the International Volume 2 and 3s (although some of the pages in Volume 3 probably include post-1952 issues). One big argument against this: if Scott puts these issues in Volume 1, what do you do about collectors who have no interest in pre-1940 stamps and start with Volume 2 or 3? (And collectors with all 3 volumes would have duplicate pages.)
But I'm certain Santa can work all that out.
