In conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the Blue International Album, Scott announced today that it will “dumb down” their flagship Classics catalog to make it mesh more closely with their flag-dingie world album.
“We are constantly being asked by collectors,” said Scott officials, “why our Classic Catalogue improves every year while the International Volume One continues to perpetuate mistakes and inconsistencies that have been in the album for decades. Well ask no more.”
Scott plans to reduce the disparity in quality between the catalog and the album by making the following changes:
1) all stamps not in the International Volume One will be eliminated from the catalog so as not to confuse collectors;
2) to compensate, catalog listings will be modified or invented to create stamps that match every space in the album, even when no actual stamp exists;
3) some correct stamp illustrations in the catalog will be replaced by incorrect ones or put in several different places;
4) stamps appearing more than once in the album will now be listed more than once in the catalog;
5) descriptions belonging to one stamp will be swapped with another a few dozen times to keep collectors on their toes;
6) as the years printed in the album often don’t match the catalog, dates for stamp sets will be adjusted randomly a year/decade or two so that nothing matches anything;
7) and in a special homage, the entire catalog listings for Syria will be reduced to a single stamp.
The editors acknowledged that collectors would no doubt prefer them to bring the Scott International Volume One up to the level of the catalog rather than vice versa, but they took a vote and agreed that “money talks.”
The famous stamp collector Josiah Lilly said that there were 100,000 postage stamps he wanted for his collection and he succeeded in acquiring 77,000. My considerably easier target is 35,000 of the more common stamps from 1840-1940 contained in the Scott Blue International Album Volume 1. This blog will record my progress, provide general information about Classic era philately and hopefully encourage other "Blue" collectors.
6 comments:
LOL.
Made my day. ;-)
The sad thing is, anyone who has worked for a large corporation knows that this is not so far-fetched.
Finally, some action by Scott that is long overdue. Funny but true.
I wonder what it would actually cost Scott to correct the mistakes that have been in Volume 1 for generations now? And while they're at it, add the hundreds of affordable stamps that are still not included. With digital layout, the cost must not be so overwhelming. Or am I dreaming?
Drew, I've heard that Amos/Scott only has only a single person assigned to the Scott/Minkus albums and that a revamp of Volume One would require hiring an additional person for just this project. I can understand why it might not be cost effective to do the Volume One "proud." But I bet correcting the most egregious mistakes surely wouldn't require a redo over more than a couple of dozen pages. Perhaps when Jim completes his checklist we can compile a list for Scott that might convince them that correcting the main mistakes wouldn't take that much time. Or am I dreaming?
Sorry to be late to the party but I was reading this after spending time at a gathering where much merriment was evident. My heartrate started to climb as I read further and further horrors only to look at the date and see that it was April 1. LOL!! And to think I got married April 1st. It was an interesting marriage....
Tim, sorry that Scott isn't really going to do this. I know people who have gotten married on Valentines Day, New Years Day, etc., but never April 1st. You were a brave person.
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