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By APS and APRL staff, supplemented by Richard West
Stanley Gibbons began as a stamp counter within a family business in 1856 in Plymouth, England. Today, at its West End emporium in The Strand of London, it offers a broad array of retail philatelic stock with more than a million stamps to browse and purchase. In addition to selling philatelic items and supplies it produces one of the world’s finest catalogs, often essential to many collectors, particularly those who collect Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
It is a rarity that about 150 years after stamp collecting and dealing began to evolve that there remains a large company that has both a catalog and a retail store. The company’s website shows it is currently selling more than 40 catalogs.
Figure 7. Volume 1 Queen Victoria, of Great Britain Specialised Stamp Catalogue, published for the first time in two parts.
More Great Britain
For those who want an extensive study, the five-volume Great Britain Specialized Catalogue could be the way to go. The breakdown: Volume 1 – Queen Victoria; Volume 2 – King Edward VII to King George VI; Volume 3 – Queen Elizabeth II, Pre-Decimal; Volume 4 – Queen Elizabeth decimal definitives; Volume 5 – Queen Elizabeth II decimal special issues. The listings are so extensive that Volume 4 is already printed in two parts, with similar treatment now under way for Volume 1. Gary Loew reviewed Great Britain Specialized Stamp Catalogue Queen Victoria Volume 1 Part 1 (Figure 7) in the September 2021 issue of The American Philatelist.
The research used to create the technical detail is so vast that it has been more than 10 years since Volume 4 was published and more than 20 years for Volume 5. An example of this research is evident in the 2020 Queen Victoria (Volume 1, Part 1) catalog. This, the 17th edition of the Queen Victoria catalog, came ten years after the 16th edition. And whereas the 16th edition was 356 pages in one single volume, the new edition is 340 pages in Part 1 alone. There are over 180 pages devoted solely to the line-engraved issues.
Keeping up to date with new issues
Just because a collector cuts off at any year, a catalog publisher cannot do that. “We have to acquire all of these stamps in order to study them carefully,” Jefferies said. “Every stamp issued needs to be inspected in order to produce an accurate listing, with face value, description, colors, print methods, (hopefully) designer, the actual ‘what is depicted,’ the perforation, the watermark if there is one. Every aspect needs to be carefully checked and annotated in the catalog.”
Jefferies noted that catalog editors have a couple of battles. One of these is inaccuracies about stamps from certain postal services and postal services that sell two types of stamps, one for the mail-using public and another for collectors. Details of the former type are not always shared with catalogs out of fear that collectors will snatch them up and mail-use postage won’t be available for the public, Jefferies said. In this case, it may be some time – maybe even years – before the stamps are noted in a catalog.