Stamp Mate & Colnect - two things that make my philatelic life much easier...

While working on my album pages, I have been also working on creating databases for my collections that include Catalog correlations between the major catalogs (Scott, Gibbons, Michel, Yvert) and any Specialist Catalogs I have in my library. 

For that purpose I use Stamp Mate, a program developed in a couple years ago by the Catamates company in I believe Europe (I think they are in Slovenia???) It's a very flexible program that is connected to the online stamp idenfication site Colnect, which allows you to import information from Colnect into the program.  For me, this serves as a "base" upon which I can then use to fill out relevant information regaring stamp varieties etc for different countries.

The last few days I have been working on my Australia collection, starting with the Federal Commonwealth Postage Dues.  Here is an example of what I have done in my Stamp Mate for listings  (you will want to open it to see it more clearly) :

This is the listing of the first part of the 1946-1956 Redrawn Plates issue of Australian Dues.  The two listings with images I imported from Colnect using the "Add Stamps Automatically" function.  I then entered the Catalog Number info that is not in already in Colnect (here that is "Specialist" - which is a special personal field I created in the program to represent the various specialized catalogs I have.  For Australia pre-1966, this is the Brusden-White Australian Commonwealth Specialist Catalogue series numbers).

I then click "edit stamp" and then "save and New (Clone) Action" to create new listings for the varieties of the base stamp not already in Colnect - editing infor such as colors, the catalog numbers etc) for each variety I want to include in my database.  As can be seen here, for the 1d value, I have created listings for five varieties (here, color shades) listed in the BW Specialist Catalog but not in the main ones.  I then put "var" after the catalog number for the main catalog listings.  So here, while I have five variety listings for Scott Australia J0072 (noted as J0072 var), they have discrete numbers in the Brusden-White column.  Very nice and organized and, when I get done, provides me catalog number correlations and information regarding what to look for in terms of varieties that are not listed in the main catalogs that just might be lurking unknown in a dealer's stock.  To quote a popular Stamp Forum Webmaster..."Knowledge Is Power!"

The program itself is not that expensive (30 Euros IIRC) and for me it's the perfect cataloging software to let me know what I have, what I want, and just what exists in general.  And its flexibility to allow personalized customization is a definite bonus.

Once I have finished all the catalog data entry, I can then use Stamp Mate to start planning out my album pages. Not in terms of design, but as I organize my collection chronologically with all varieties of stamps for a given year together (Defins, Commems, Charity, Dues, Officials etc.) I can use the "Year of Issue" box to filter all the stamps issues in that year that I have listings for.  That way I don't have to have four or five catalogs open at one time while working on making the page layouts on Excel, just Stamp Mates!

One issue some collectors might have with this system is that Colnect, the online stamp (and other collectibles) identifier/catalog, does not always have complete listings for many nations.  Colnect's information is provided based on a Wiki model, contributors provide information that Colnect's moderators then add, and other users can help improve information, correct errors etc.  Overall Colnect has become a very good resource for stamp collectors - its stamp section now lists over 660,000 items.

Here is a sample of their listings, this is from Portugal for the year 1951 - showing the catalog cross references provided, which are so handy if you buy stamps online from dealers in other parts of the world.  Here we have numbers for Michel, a major US catalog producer, Yvert and Portugal's Afinsa. Also nice images you can click to get a larger view, and lots of technical information.  Again, no catalog values, but just having the cross-reference of the catalog numbers and the technical information is very valuable.

However, working on my French colonial/post colonial pages that I have posted on here so far, I found plenty of gaps.  So, one of my new philatelic projects is helping to fill those gaps on colnect by submitting information, images etc. It's actually quite easy to do, and is a great way to expand the global philatelic "knowledge" base.  One area I have also been helping Colnect with in the past few months is New Issues.  I discovered that this was one of the weaker areas for Colnect for nations outside the EU and North America, so have been doing research and contributing information, images etc for new 2017 (and in some cases 2016) issues that they lacked for many nations. Been having a lot of fun with this, and its given me a new appreciation of the beauty of design of many new issues from around the world this year.

Here is an image from some of the the 2017 issues of Vietnam I submitted for addition earlier today :

Colnect of course is not the only online stamp "catalog" around. There is also Stampworld.  But the two have some key differences.  Colnect is more "reference" oriented - it provides information on catalogue numbers for stamps from the main (and some regional) catalogs (though where there is no info, as with new issues, they have their own "placeholder" Colnect codes that can be later updated when catalogs do assign number for the new issues).  Stampworld, on the other hand, has its own unique numbering system.  And there is a reason for this - Stampworld provides "values" for stamps...though what those values are based on I have never been able to conclude.  Colnect does NOT provide catalog value information, and any information you import into Stamp Mate from Colnect will not have catalog values - you'll have to enter those yourself.  For me, that is perfectly fine.  I'd rather do that kind of data entry myself rather than use "market data" of unclear provenance.

Hopefully you all find these programs/websites helpful. I have found them to be invaluable in helping me not just organize my collection, but deal with that issue that plagues collectors who use the internet to buy material - the different catalog systems used in different nations.

Links :

Stamp Mate 2015 by Catamates

Colnect Stamp Catalog

Comments? Questions? Ask Away!!

Re-thinking how I organize my stamp collections...

We philatelists can be a fickle lot.  We are always looking for the best way, at the most economical price possible, to display our collections as we get more and more stamps.  Sometimes the ideas we have to achieve this end up having an Achilles Heel that we did not consider before, but appears when we move further along in the organizational process.

Those of you who have followed my blog over the past year or so know that I house my collection on Vario Stockpages.  You also are quite aware of my fondness for specialized catalogs and my desire to organize my collection so that it is easy to fit in varieties listed in specialized catalogs along with the "mainstream" stamps listed in the general catalogs such as Scott.

I thought I had worked out an excellent system.  I would create a "key" using a spreadsheet program to create "pages" that would reflect the content on the Vario pages I had or would include in my albums.  Once made I could print these outlines out on paper and place them in the back of the correct album.

I would thus have a paper copy with my albums, plus a digital copy I could save. And the result was this setup :

Algeria Key that I had set up in a spreadsheet and then printed out.

Then a disaster happened - the original master copy I had created with ALL of the album layouts I had developed (around 60 different countries by that point) became corrupted and I could no longer access it.  

So I came to a fork in the road - do I re-enter all that data and had lost, or go in a different direction in terms of how I created a "key" that would let me know where stamps would go on a Vario page.

I decided on the latter course, in part because the old system had one major flaw - it was difficult to include more than one catalog number per cell without the page being confusing.  Also, it did not really provide an easy way to know what the exact nature of the "varieties" would be.  

So, I started rethinking the idea of how best to create a system that would accomplish all of the following

1. Show Catalog Numbers for both Scott and whichever specialized catalog I used for that nation, if any.
2. Indicate what exactly the variety for minor-number listings of stamps were - was it a new color shade, a new perf type, a constant plate variety?
3. Provide a little information about what the stamp depicted or commemorated. This was something I had thought I would not really need, but over time I did miss this element that you get with album pages.

To accomplish these goals I realized I needed to provide the information much closer to the actual stamps in the album, not simply printed at the back of the album.

My first idea was to create small tags that I could insert next to each stamp. Then all the information would be right there with the stamp. After a bit of playing around I found that spreadsheet programs would work best to create these tags and then I could just print them out (on acid free paper) and insert into album next to stamps.

This was the result 

Page from my Algeria album with the "tag" idea implemented

It does fulfill the three requirements I listed above, and would remove any doubt to any future dealers who might end up with my stamps as to what I have.

After getting some collector feedback from the various stamp bulletin boards, however, I came to realize one thing - the tags were definitely overshadowing the stamps.  As the owner of Stamp Boards commented, it looked like I was "collecting paper tags" as well as stamps.  And he was right.

Plus, there is one other consideration here - you can print out a page of tags onto acid free paper, but you still need to separate them, which means a lot, and I mean a great deal, of cutting with scissors. Thinking about all the albums I have and plan to make in the future, I could already feel my hands starting to cramp up!  

Then a collector on the Stamp Boards forum made a comment about how the Stanley Gibbons albums were organized.  The stamps are only on the right side of the page, with catalog information and illustrations provided on the left page opposite. (this is also the setup I believe Mystic uses in its USA albums).  So the albums look something like this

Stanley Gibbons "Imperial" album setup :

Illustrations and text one side, the stamps themselves opposite

It was the "Eureka" moment I was looking for.  This kind of setup would achieve the three goals I wanted to achieve with the information, but not make the pages so cluttered that it distracts from the stamps themselves.

And this is the result 

Page from my Algeria album with the info page opposite to the stamps.

The look is I think quite clean, yet provides all the relevant information I need at a quick glance - which stamps do I need, where does it go on the page, what is its catalog number, why is it a variety.

Now since Vario pages are 2 sided, the way I will lay out my albums will be to have a double-sided info page inserted between two Vario pages. Print out on acid free paper, place into a page protector, and voila, done. No fiddly cutting tags!

So now I am in the process of creating these info pages for my albums. Yes it will be a lot of work, but since my base file corrupted, I have to do it anyways, and it's a fun project that helps me learn more about what the various specialized catalogs include.  Plus, when money is tight and I can't spend a lot of money on stamps themselves, this is a cheap way to enjoy philatelic time.