Help › Variants

What are Variants?

Variants are nearly identical collectible items that differ from each other in one or several small details. A number of such items that match each other are a "Variant Group".

Items that belong to a variant group are indicated by a "Click to see variants" link on the item information. Click the link to see all items belonging to this variant group.

Each collectible category defines variants a little differently. You can see the full list of Variant Guidelines of all Colnect categories on our Collectors Collecting Wiki.

The Minor Variants Debate

Variants are a controversial issue for many collectors. While a specific difference may be important to some collectors, it may be negligible for others. On one hand, having all possible variants shown on Colnect could make our catalogs seem messy to collectors not interested in these variations. On the other hand, not including all possible variants would turn away collectors who are very interested in these variations. Following much debate in our community, we decided the best solution to all would be with marking some variants as minor. The minor variants system lists items that have minor differences not as separate items, but within major items' pages they are variants of. The minor variants section includes info about minor variants such as catalog codes, differences from a major item, pictures etc. Minor variants can be added to personal collection lists the same way as major variants. For the respective options to be shown/hidden you need to click either on the minor variant line or the black triangle icon.

Overprints & Surcharges Variants

In the stamp catalog stamps with all overprints found on a base stamp are brought together as separate variant groups. Items that belong to a variant group are indicated by a "overprints and surcharges" link on the item information. Click the link to see all items belonging to this overprints and surcharges variant group.

Who decides which variants are minor?

Our catalogs are built and maintained by volunteers. The Colnect community drafts guidelines and our editors try to follow them. If you are not an editor, please read "Collector Comments" to see how you can help.

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