How can we improve the Stamps catalogue?(Update: 7-Feb)

[wewgg]

Imagine a tree:

First there is the stamp

Then there are variants (color, date, ...)

after there are differences in watermarks, minor differences in colors...

after there are errors in printing or only in some places of the plate...

Never mind where to find more ways to distinguish

Then there are pirates who have copied the stamps (a century ago, and now famous)

You never know, this is information for "inside" people, but NOT for a simple collector. Let him use the program,

but not push him away. He is as important as any other collector.

[tcawe]

Thank you for your feedback but please try to spend a little more time with Colnect before deciding it doesn't work as expected.

Colnect allows you to quickly search and find stamps that might interest you, based on various filters. When a stamp has variants, it's clearly mentioned and you can decide to view these variants or not. Highly specialized variants are now hidden by default unless enabled by the member on their profile. More common variants shouldn't be hidden.

[wewgg]

Reading my post today, I imagine that nobody could understand it completely, hehe, not even I..

The idea is the following, coming from studying, i think, about 30 different catalogues.

There are general, specialized, thematical catalogues, divided by countries, continental, centuries, filtered by sports, animals, important histories, personalities....

Now imagine that you have a nice, not too big, collection.

A little collection doesn't need colnect for organize, but it helps to learn more about stamps and to get contact with other collectors.

A really big one needs professional help, but doesn't interchange this way, nor will it show it's real volume.

Giving my collection as example.. I have stamps from the beginning of the stamps-era from nearly all countries of the world, but only 5 or 6 are really intensive.

So what I would like to see is a way to change the knowledge-level inside of a aplicated filter.

Imagine, Bulgaria I would like to see only on general level, without details, no variants, no color distinguishing.. complete, but simple

England and Austria, I need more detailed, maybe with different perforations.

And Germany and Spain y need a maximum of details and variants (watermarks, perforations, colors,variants,..)

I still have stamps in my collection, where I really don't know how to find them in your site. And others, where you have between 5 or 10 variants, and i don't need nor want to determine

which of them fits with my stamp, or i have 20 of this stamp and I have no time, no need to find from which variant they come.

All this would be arranged with a level-marker when I choose a country. This way I could choose how detailed I want to introduce my collection or inform me whats there outside...

I will try an example:

Level 1: Basic information. All stamps are listed, with minimal information, like titel, cover-value, colors, dents or cut

Level 2: All of level one, plus different perforations, quality (centration, with or without gum)

Level 3: All of level two, plus watermarks, double-print, minor differences in color, paper-types

Level 4: All of level 3, plus all I have not remembered in this moment or I don't know by a fault of knowledge

This way I could manage in some countries my stamps without fight with details, and in others I could find all possible information about a special stamp.

I remember, when I started 40 years ago with my collection with a hundred of stamps.. the only thing I liked was to identificate them in a catalogue and to see

how many stamps are there which I don't have. Later I received other collections and I needed more details for organize them. After coming more things and

in some areas I really needed the more sofisticated details.

Here in Colnect I have sometimes the feeling like in the saying: Because of so many trees I don't see the forrest.

Theres need for a structuration of the information..

Ask for details, in the moment I don't know how to explain more...

Regards, Wolfgang

[tcawe]

While I understand your need and it's a common need, it's not something that can be attended to easily.

Different collectors have different notions of which details are important and which are not important. You've just defined 4 levels that I'm sure would work well for but probably won't work well for most other collectors. Also, creating a super-complex system to try and answer very specific needs makes the entire system harder to understand for most collectors.

We're now implementing year-variants in the coins category and this may later start an option for minor variants with other categories, such as stamps. With that implementation, some minor variants will simply be inside the single item page and not presented as different items on Colnect. That might make it easier/harder to relate to variants of interest. However, we're at least a few months away from such an idea that hasn't yet been played out with our stamp coordinators.

Meanwhile I can recommend embracing the current system which offers tons of useful information that you can either use or ignore, depending on your needs.

[brendatucker]

I looked for my first U.S. revenue stamp and don't find any of the tax revenue stamps listed here. I'm wondering why that is.

I've seen tax revenue stamps as a category of emission for other countries.

Perhaps this is addressed somewhere in the forums and I just haven't been able to find it.

[footy68]

you have to enable 'Special items' in your Profile and you will thousands.

[brendatucker]

I have tried to find what you are referring to, but have failed. Are you sure those are the exact words? Is this a menu item or a link through account? I need more directions.

[GreyGhost]

I think what you're looking for is the "Always show special variants" display option, which is accessed through the "My Account" menu item under your username.

[walberg]

In common I like the stamps catalogue, but see my proposals on: https://colnect.com/en/forum/viewtopic!f=37&t=71643

This division (sub-categories) will be necessary, and - in my mind - the earlier the better.

[tcawe]

We're discussing the move of FDC and other philatelic products to a new category.

I've also alerted the coordinator about your topic of personal stamps so it can continue to be discussed there.

Thanks