Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Regarding the listings, Scott states:
"Most stamps, however, are common and readily available. Collector demand is low because they already have them.
"Consequently, catalog values are flat or declining slightly.
"Overall, the global stamp market is rather calm."
Scott also states that it is considering ways to relieve the girth of each catalog volume. Looks like they want to expand into seven volumes (not in the 2016 edition of the catalog), but my guess will be soon. They are surveying dealers and collectors on ways to do this. Looks like one thing they are considering is eliminating the alphabetical listing of countries. Sounds like going along with what other catalogs are: divided by continents and areas. As a worldwide collector, I am not in favor of that idea, but I am in favor of combining fractured country units together. An example of this is Ceylon and Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka doesn't start with a #2. It starts where Ceylon numbering left off. But, Scott didn't ask me.
So, watch out. The Scott catalogs could wind up being a large quantity of smaller, regional volumes and single country books. I'm sure their justification will be that Gibbons and Michel do it that way, and it better reflects the philatelic market as there are no longer genuine worldwide collectors.
I don't even want to think about the pricing for an entire set of catalogs should they do it like that. It'll fall out-of-date rather quickly, just like Gibbons does where updated catalogs are not regularly issued in areas that they deem to be "unpopular". Not that they do all that great a job updating values annually now anyway.
On other thing I have noticed is that the Amos Advantage discount has been reduced a little bit. It'll cost you about 1% to 2% more buying with Amos Advantage.
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An addendum to my post:
The 2016 Scott Catalogs have risen in price to $124.99 each volume.
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We all know that pricing revisions yearly are BOGUS. The only real value to a new catalog is the listing of new material since the last issue was published, and for any corrections required.
A (searchable) on line catalog, and a yearly supplement would do it all for me. As far as the prices quoted for stamps, much better would be to have PRICE RANGES very Low A(25-50c), Low B(50c -$1) etc. except for the very exceptional higher valued rare stamps.
(This was some of my thinking in Approvals)
Anyone today taking catalog pricing at face value is ignoring the reality that these are made up ( I strongly suspect it)! With price of a full set of catalogs ever increasing, the business model of Scott is unsustainable. That is why I ONLY buy the parts I need from chirokmd....and only occasionally.
Some years back I compared Europa prices for all stamps over a several year interval. Price changes year to year looked like they were fabricated, using a software subroutine...except occasionally when a country was fully re-evaluated..or when currency exchange rates distorts the relative pricing across regions, or countries.
So I take all pricing as just a guideline. Furthermore, and this is ignored by most buyers and sellers, pricing is associated with a specific grade and condition of the stamp. Referencing another grade's price when listing stamps is basically misleading and possibly unethical..but all do it. For example, a proper listing price for a hinged unused stamp, should be a specific percentage off a MNH. I would go for 25% to 50% off the listed MNH value. Why haven't catalogs published such a price routinely?
Our stamp club used to purchase a set of NEW Scott catalogs, for use by members (you check a volume out, like a library) every TWO years. We now have gone to once every THREE years. But if we had access to a catalog of just the newly issued stamps annually, that is all we would ever purchase (except maybe once in a decade, to update base prices, and replace worn out catalogs).
Any one interested in formulating a business plan for this concept, and jumping into the Catalog business in line with what computer technology can bring to the hobby (image recognition, searchable data bases, price comparisons..etc...)? Think about the standard catalog destroying potential, as well as the business opportunity! Full catalogs every 5 (10?) years, and annual supplements...and lots of fancy software!
rrr...
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Yikes. I can't believe they still publish a set of paper catalogues annually. And $125 each? Wow.
It must be profitable even though it's so impractical or else they'd quit and really focus on an online or tablet version that works.
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Scott is stuck in the past. I don't have a problem with a paper catalog, but they aren't even doing that right anymore. A catalog set dated 2016 with 2014 retail values in at least half of the volumes exhibits how worthless the valuations are. Makes it wiser to purchase out-of-date catalogs. The values will mean just as much as the current edition.
Sales of the catalogs are diminishing. Libraries don't, clubs don't, collectors don't, dealers don't purchase them as often as they used to. To cover losses, Scott reduces printing quantities, which raises the cost of each volume. The price goes up, and less people buy. Next year the same occurs - less printed higher prices less sales.
The old law of supply and demand has long been forgotten in many areas (not just Scott). If your product isn't selling, there is less demand, so one must do something to spur sales. Dropping prices is one way. How can they do that? Advertise six months ahead of the release date for the first volume that Catalog set #### will be a special commemorative catalog set. State the price of the catalogs will be $60 each volume. Hold off on the print order as long as possible to get as many pre-orders in as possible. Then go to print. Might break even, might make a little bit, might lose. However, that will certainly get the attention of the collecting community, and libraries will probably buy a set as will so many others as they get a great chance to update their catalog set.
From what happens with that catalog set, go back to normal, but keep the price of each volume as close as possible to that $60. It the plan made some nice money, keep the price the same, or just raise it by $5. If it was break even or a slight loss, raise t maybe $10. If it was a large loss, well that should tell you what the collectors think about your product.
Not feasible? That's what was said in the model railroad hobby when a company slashed the price of its annual catalog by more than half one year. Did they sell catalogs that year and the volume continued with high sales for many years following.
But Scott isn't willing to make changes unless there is a big scream from dealers.
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i am still limping along with thes 2012 scotts...with the items i collect the scott catalog becomes less and less revelant...the marketplace determines the price. Plus i do not collect modern issues from any countries !
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I bought last years catalogs so that I could price out and sell a bunch of my country collections, but those are the LAST SET I will probably ever buy from Scotts. From now on, I'll buy just the single country listings from the folks on ebay who cut up the catalogs.
I really feel badly for the worldwide collectors. Holey smokes they are pricy!
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The trend in so many things these days is monthly subscriptions. Your smartphone, cable, netflix, spotify, etc. Even Amazon is experimenting with subscriptions for kindle books.
In my mind, if they were to build an iPad app that has the catalogue, up to date prices, images that I can zoom in on, and a checklist (so I can mark the stamps I have), I'd gladly pay $10 - $15 every month.
They could still control their monopoly on the Almighty Scott Number and I'm convinced they'd expand their reach amongst collectors. Especially all these new 50 somethings that are rediscovering the hobby.
$10 per month is way more than I pay on Scott products today. Heck, I'm using 2011 catalogues that I bought used in 2013. So actually Scott's received $0 from me.
It'll be at least 10 years before I buy another set. My 25c stamps won't be going up that much over the next decade! 
Mark
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Mark, I don't know if you are aware that Scott does publish eBook versions of its catalogues, and they include most of the functions that you want, except for the checklist. However…
I bought the Scott Classic catalogue to use on my iPad, and it's just not very good, the catalogue, not the iPad, although I'm not all that impressed with the iPad,* either. The search function is primitive and essentially unusable. Zooming on images is barely OK — much-higher-res images would be nice. And the interface is hardly intuitive. In fact, it's detuitive, to coin a word! With prices in line with the dead-tree versions of the catalogue, it doesn't make much sense to buy it, in my opinion. As Philatelia said, good bang for the buck is offered by eBay sellers who dismember new catalogues and sell country sets of pages. I've bought page-sets for both Vietnam and Algeria. Inexpensive and very useful. One set is in page protectors and a ring book, the other I took to a UPS store and had plastic covers and a Cerlock binding put on it.
Bob
*If automobiles and software worked as badly as iPads and every computer I've ever had, not to mention the internet itself, automobile executives and software developers would be in jail.
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I know most like the hard copies but I find the Scotts in pdf quite useful.
I don't collect past 1980 or concern myself so much with values so my 2009 version is quite adequate
Good zoom feature (250% below)
Searches for a name or denomination are simple & fast
You can easily take it anywhere with you. A decent printer and you have hard copies.
Breaking it down into countries is very easy - something they could do with no printing costs (make them as you need them).
I guess pirating is a big issue so we probably won't see anymore pdf versions any time soon.
Edited:
I don't quite understand how the sellers of individual countries do it? 100 people want the US & 1 wants Burundi. So you buy 100 books to remove 1 country? I would think you buy 1 book, run a good OCR program & print & package as you need them.
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03:26:25pm
I'm still using 2009. It was my first Scott in colour and I was ecstatic!
My old catalogues - 1998 which were obviously not colour, I gave to the boy who started collecting stamps (thanks to many of you guys who gave him a great Christmas gift - they are slightly on the back burner due to school since he's in high school now but he still gets a chance from time to time to play around with them).
The only upgrade I did was in 2012, I got a new Unitrade since my old one was 1997. LOL I was quite surprised that my nice little book that fit in my hand had turned into a coiled catalogue the same size as one of my Scotts!
I finally updated my Michel Germany from 1998 to 2009 and now also have the two volume 2012 version. (I think those are the right dates on them).
Thankfully my collection is pretty centralised so it's just a matter of seeing value changes so I guess every decade or so is sufficient for me. One of my buddies upgraded me with the 2013 (I think) Russian pages when he bought his new set so that made me a very happy girl. Otherwise I schlep myself down to the library. Ironically I live in a small city but they keep Scott up to date and guaranteed, anytime you go, someone has out the volume you need. They always have the newest one in reference as well as on the shelf.
I really ought to talk to them to find out when they switch out the catalogues (they usually keep 2 years on the shelf) and see how I can buy them from them. That's how I got my first set.
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It makes one wonder why the price of the catalog's jump in price so quickly, but when I checked one of my 2013 Scott's, I see there is a lack of advertising in the pages, which would seem to mean they are also gouging the advertiser and are finding fewer are as willing to accept the higher costs. I even saw one page with almost a full column of blank space, which may give a clue to the loss of advertisers. It also seemed to me the biggest advertiser was Amos publishing themselves. I do admit that I did not go completely through the catalog, but probably 100 pages or so, which seemed to be a good sized sampling. I still like the 2009 edition on the computer, the one that did not require chopping down a forest to be usable. I'm also one that has not help enlarge Scott's coffers since I buy used catalogs.
Mike
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04:44:17pm
There's no reason they can't create it in PDF again with encryption and security. The encryption ability of a PDF is very hard to crack. Of course, you'll always have someone who will crack it, but then again, you'll always have someone who will sit and scan the entire catalogue and sell it or give it away or put it on a file server. This is the age of electronics, no matter what someone does, there is always someone else who will waste valuable time trying to crack it. They can always do what Microsoft and Norton, etc. do and place a limit on one to three users and the person can choose which they prefer. Chance are if they offer that they will get more buyers as well, since people would use it on their computers plus their iPads, etc so they would get people buying the optional packages of 1 user, 2 user or 3 user. Either way, they're getting more money out and more customers will be pleased with the product.
So, in the long run - they would have more legitimate buyers, make more money and make a lot of people happy if they put it in PDF. They'd also be able to add a lot of notes that they can't put into a printed catalogue for lack of space (due to the cost of the catalogue they aren't going to sell!)
Just my nickel's worth of thought.
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Thanks for the notes on the classic catalogue app, Bob.
I used an early version of their first 'app' and have an older pdf version. The pdf was pretty much useless and all I remember about the app was that it was huge so I deleted it pretty quickly.
I read somewhere that you need to be connected to the network in order to use the latest app, so it didn't work too well at shows (where you want something more portable than six paper volumes. ). Argh.
I admit to not studying their "app" progress closely anymore. I always got the sense that their #1 priority was protecting their intellectual property (the Almighty Number) and #2 was extracting short term revenue. So looking at how to make the experience of using the catalogue better isn't a big deal too them. Too bad.
Now about your iPad comments. . I love mine. Love it. Best device I have. Now, it's taken me forever to type this comment into the box from my iPad, and correct all my mistakes, and fix the crazy autocorrects of "pdf" . And this site loads really slowly, even though it's the fastest stamp site on the net. And I can't seem to leave a comment on "blogger" blogs with it. But I love it. Haha.
Mark
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Thanks for the notes on the classic catalogue app, Bob.
I used an early version of their first 'app' and have an older pdf version. The pdf was pretty much useless and all I remember about the app was that it was huge so I deleted it pretty quickly.
I read somewhere that you need to be connected to the network in order to use the latest app, so it didn't work too well at shows (where you want something more portable than six paper volumes. ). Argh.
I admit to not studying their "app" progress closely anymore. I always got the sense that their #1 priority was protecting their intellectual property (the Almighty Number) and #2 was extracting short term revenue. So looking at how to make the experience of using the catalogue better isn't a big deal too them. Too bad.
Now about your iPad comments. . I love mine. Love it. Best device I have. Now, it's taken me forever to type this comment into the box from my iPad, and correct all my mistakes, and fix the crazy autocorrects of "pdf" . And this site loads really slowly, even though it's the fastest stamp site on the net. And I can't seem to leave a comment on "blogger" blogs with it. But I love it. Haha.
Mark
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This month (April 2015), Scott begins issuing the 2016 catalogs. In the March 16 issues of Linn's, Scott stated that work on Volume 3 of the catalog is being completed. That is one heck of a lead time, putting Volume 1 work ending in 2014! The 2016 catalogs won't have many stamps issued past 2014. Makes no sense.
Regarding the listings, Scott states:
"Most stamps, however, are common and readily available. Collector demand is low because they already have them.
"Consequently, catalog values are flat or declining slightly.
"Overall, the global stamp market is rather calm."
Scott also states that it is considering ways to relieve the girth of each catalog volume. Looks like they want to expand into seven volumes (not in the 2016 edition of the catalog), but my guess will be soon. They are surveying dealers and collectors on ways to do this. Looks like one thing they are considering is eliminating the alphabetical listing of countries. Sounds like going along with what other catalogs are: divided by continents and areas. As a worldwide collector, I am not in favor of that idea, but I am in favor of combining fractured country units together. An example of this is Ceylon and Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka doesn't start with a #2. It starts where Ceylon numbering left off. But, Scott didn't ask me.
So, watch out. The Scott catalogs could wind up being a large quantity of smaller, regional volumes and single country books. I'm sure their justification will be that Gibbons and Michel do it that way, and it better reflects the philatelic market as there are no longer genuine worldwide collectors.
I don't even want to think about the pricing for an entire set of catalogs should they do it like that. It'll fall out-of-date rather quickly, just like Gibbons does where updated catalogs are not regularly issued in areas that they deem to be "unpopular". Not that they do all that great a job updating values annually now anyway.
On other thing I have noticed is that the Amos Advantage discount has been reduced a little bit. It'll cost you about 1% to 2% more buying with Amos Advantage.
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re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
An addendum to my post:
The 2016 Scott Catalogs have risen in price to $124.99 each volume.
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Retired Ap. Book Mod, Pres Golden Gate Stamp Club, Hi Tech Consultant
03 Apr 2015
05:25:58pm
re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
We all know that pricing revisions yearly are BOGUS. The only real value to a new catalog is the listing of new material since the last issue was published, and for any corrections required.
A (searchable) on line catalog, and a yearly supplement would do it all for me. As far as the prices quoted for stamps, much better would be to have PRICE RANGES very Low A(25-50c), Low B(50c -$1) etc. except for the very exceptional higher valued rare stamps.
(This was some of my thinking in Approvals)
Anyone today taking catalog pricing at face value is ignoring the reality that these are made up ( I strongly suspect it)! With price of a full set of catalogs ever increasing, the business model of Scott is unsustainable. That is why I ONLY buy the parts I need from chirokmd....and only occasionally.
Some years back I compared Europa prices for all stamps over a several year interval. Price changes year to year looked like they were fabricated, using a software subroutine...except occasionally when a country was fully re-evaluated..or when currency exchange rates distorts the relative pricing across regions, or countries.
So I take all pricing as just a guideline. Furthermore, and this is ignored by most buyers and sellers, pricing is associated with a specific grade and condition of the stamp. Referencing another grade's price when listing stamps is basically misleading and possibly unethical..but all do it. For example, a proper listing price for a hinged unused stamp, should be a specific percentage off a MNH. I would go for 25% to 50% off the listed MNH value. Why haven't catalogs published such a price routinely?
Our stamp club used to purchase a set of NEW Scott catalogs, for use by members (you check a volume out, like a library) every TWO years. We now have gone to once every THREE years. But if we had access to a catalog of just the newly issued stamps annually, that is all we would ever purchase (except maybe once in a decade, to update base prices, and replace worn out catalogs).
Any one interested in formulating a business plan for this concept, and jumping into the Catalog business in line with what computer technology can bring to the hobby (image recognition, searchable data bases, price comparisons..etc...)? Think about the standard catalog destroying potential, as well as the business opportunity! Full catalogs every 5 (10?) years, and annual supplements...and lots of fancy software!
rrr...
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re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
Yikes. I can't believe they still publish a set of paper catalogues annually. And $125 each? Wow.
It must be profitable even though it's so impractical or else they'd quit and really focus on an online or tablet version that works.
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re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
Scott is stuck in the past. I don't have a problem with a paper catalog, but they aren't even doing that right anymore. A catalog set dated 2016 with 2014 retail values in at least half of the volumes exhibits how worthless the valuations are. Makes it wiser to purchase out-of-date catalogs. The values will mean just as much as the current edition.
Sales of the catalogs are diminishing. Libraries don't, clubs don't, collectors don't, dealers don't purchase them as often as they used to. To cover losses, Scott reduces printing quantities, which raises the cost of each volume. The price goes up, and less people buy. Next year the same occurs - less printed higher prices less sales.
The old law of supply and demand has long been forgotten in many areas (not just Scott). If your product isn't selling, there is less demand, so one must do something to spur sales. Dropping prices is one way. How can they do that? Advertise six months ahead of the release date for the first volume that Catalog set #### will be a special commemorative catalog set. State the price of the catalogs will be $60 each volume. Hold off on the print order as long as possible to get as many pre-orders in as possible. Then go to print. Might break even, might make a little bit, might lose. However, that will certainly get the attention of the collecting community, and libraries will probably buy a set as will so many others as they get a great chance to update their catalog set.
From what happens with that catalog set, go back to normal, but keep the price of each volume as close as possible to that $60. It the plan made some nice money, keep the price the same, or just raise it by $5. If it was break even or a slight loss, raise t maybe $10. If it was a large loss, well that should tell you what the collectors think about your product.
Not feasible? That's what was said in the model railroad hobby when a company slashed the price of its annual catalog by more than half one year. Did they sell catalogs that year and the volume continued with high sales for many years following.
But Scott isn't willing to make changes unless there is a big scream from dealers.
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re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
i am still limping along with thes 2012 scotts...with the items i collect the scott catalog becomes less and less revelant...the marketplace determines the price. Plus i do not collect modern issues from any countries !
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re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
I bought last years catalogs so that I could price out and sell a bunch of my country collections, but those are the LAST SET I will probably ever buy from Scotts. From now on, I'll buy just the single country listings from the folks on ebay who cut up the catalogs.
I really feel badly for the worldwide collectors. Holey smokes they are pricy!
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re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
The trend in so many things these days is monthly subscriptions. Your smartphone, cable, netflix, spotify, etc. Even Amazon is experimenting with subscriptions for kindle books.
In my mind, if they were to build an iPad app that has the catalogue, up to date prices, images that I can zoom in on, and a checklist (so I can mark the stamps I have), I'd gladly pay $10 - $15 every month.
They could still control their monopoly on the Almighty Scott Number and I'm convinced they'd expand their reach amongst collectors. Especially all these new 50 somethings that are rediscovering the hobby.
$10 per month is way more than I pay on Scott products today. Heck, I'm using 2011 catalogues that I bought used in 2013. So actually Scott's received $0 from me.
It'll be at least 10 years before I buy another set. My 25c stamps won't be going up that much over the next decade!
Mark
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re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
Mark, I don't know if you are aware that Scott does publish eBook versions of its catalogues, and they include most of the functions that you want, except for the checklist. However…
I bought the Scott Classic catalogue to use on my iPad, and it's just not very good, the catalogue, not the iPad, although I'm not all that impressed with the iPad,* either. The search function is primitive and essentially unusable. Zooming on images is barely OK — much-higher-res images would be nice. And the interface is hardly intuitive. In fact, it's detuitive, to coin a word! With prices in line with the dead-tree versions of the catalogue, it doesn't make much sense to buy it, in my opinion. As Philatelia said, good bang for the buck is offered by eBay sellers who dismember new catalogues and sell country sets of pages. I've bought page-sets for both Vietnam and Algeria. Inexpensive and very useful. One set is in page protectors and a ring book, the other I took to a UPS store and had plastic covers and a Cerlock binding put on it.
Bob
*If automobiles and software worked as badly as iPads and every computer I've ever had, not to mention the internet itself, automobile executives and software developers would be in jail.
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03:03:09pm
re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
I know most like the hard copies but I find the Scotts in pdf quite useful.
I don't collect past 1980 or concern myself so much with values so my 2009 version is quite adequate
Good zoom feature (250% below)
Searches for a name or denomination are simple & fast
You can easily take it anywhere with you. A decent printer and you have hard copies.
Breaking it down into countries is very easy - something they could do with no printing costs (make them as you need them).
I guess pirating is a big issue so we probably won't see anymore pdf versions any time soon.
Edited:
I don't quite understand how the sellers of individual countries do it? 100 people want the US & 1 wants Burundi. So you buy 100 books to remove 1 country? I would think you buy 1 book, run a good OCR program & print & package as you need them.
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A Service Dog gives a person with a disability independence. Never approach, distract or pet a working dog, especially when (s)he is in harness. Never be afraid to ask questions to the handler (parent).
04 Apr 2015
03:26:25pm
re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
I'm still using 2009. It was my first Scott in colour and I was ecstatic!
My old catalogues - 1998 which were obviously not colour, I gave to the boy who started collecting stamps (thanks to many of you guys who gave him a great Christmas gift - they are slightly on the back burner due to school since he's in high school now but he still gets a chance from time to time to play around with them).
The only upgrade I did was in 2012, I got a new Unitrade since my old one was 1997. LOL I was quite surprised that my nice little book that fit in my hand had turned into a coiled catalogue the same size as one of my Scotts!
I finally updated my Michel Germany from 1998 to 2009 and now also have the two volume 2012 version. (I think those are the right dates on them).
Thankfully my collection is pretty centralised so it's just a matter of seeing value changes so I guess every decade or so is sufficient for me. One of my buddies upgraded me with the 2013 (I think) Russian pages when he bought his new set so that made me a very happy girl. Otherwise I schlep myself down to the library. Ironically I live in a small city but they keep Scott up to date and guaranteed, anytime you go, someone has out the volume you need. They always have the newest one in reference as well as on the shelf.
I really ought to talk to them to find out when they switch out the catalogues (they usually keep 2 years on the shelf) and see how I can buy them from them. That's how I got my first set.
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re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
It makes one wonder why the price of the catalog's jump in price so quickly, but when I checked one of my 2013 Scott's, I see there is a lack of advertising in the pages, which would seem to mean they are also gouging the advertiser and are finding fewer are as willing to accept the higher costs. I even saw one page with almost a full column of blank space, which may give a clue to the loss of advertisers. It also seemed to me the biggest advertiser was Amos publishing themselves. I do admit that I did not go completely through the catalog, but probably 100 pages or so, which seemed to be a good sized sampling. I still like the 2009 edition on the computer, the one that did not require chopping down a forest to be usable. I'm also one that has not help enlarge Scott's coffers since I buy used catalogs.
Mike
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A Service Dog gives a person with a disability independence. Never approach, distract or pet a working dog, especially when (s)he is in harness. Never be afraid to ask questions to the handler (parent).
04 Apr 2015
04:44:17pm
re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
There's no reason they can't create it in PDF again with encryption and security. The encryption ability of a PDF is very hard to crack. Of course, you'll always have someone who will crack it, but then again, you'll always have someone who will sit and scan the entire catalogue and sell it or give it away or put it on a file server. This is the age of electronics, no matter what someone does, there is always someone else who will waste valuable time trying to crack it. They can always do what Microsoft and Norton, etc. do and place a limit on one to three users and the person can choose which they prefer. Chance are if they offer that they will get more buyers as well, since people would use it on their computers plus their iPads, etc so they would get people buying the optional packages of 1 user, 2 user or 3 user. Either way, they're getting more money out and more customers will be pleased with the product.
So, in the long run - they would have more legitimate buyers, make more money and make a lot of people happy if they put it in PDF. They'd also be able to add a lot of notes that they can't put into a printed catalogue for lack of space (due to the cost of the catalogue they aren't going to sell!)
Just my nickel's worth of thought.
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re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
Thanks for the notes on the classic catalogue app, Bob.
I used an early version of their first 'app' and have an older pdf version. The pdf was pretty much useless and all I remember about the app was that it was huge so I deleted it pretty quickly.
I read somewhere that you need to be connected to the network in order to use the latest app, so it didn't work too well at shows (where you want something more portable than six paper volumes. ). Argh.
I admit to not studying their "app" progress closely anymore. I always got the sense that their #1 priority was protecting their intellectual property (the Almighty Number) and #2 was extracting short term revenue. So looking at how to make the experience of using the catalogue better isn't a big deal too them. Too bad.
Now about your iPad comments. . I love mine. Love it. Best device I have. Now, it's taken me forever to type this comment into the box from my iPad, and correct all my mistakes, and fix the crazy autocorrects of "pdf" . And this site loads really slowly, even though it's the fastest stamp site on the net. And I can't seem to leave a comment on "blogger" blogs with it. But I love it. Haha.
Mark
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re: 2016 Scott Catalogs
Thanks for the notes on the classic catalogue app, Bob.
I used an early version of their first 'app' and have an older pdf version. The pdf was pretty much useless and all I remember about the app was that it was huge so I deleted it pretty quickly.
I read somewhere that you need to be connected to the network in order to use the latest app, so it didn't work too well at shows (where you want something more portable than six paper volumes. ). Argh.
I admit to not studying their "app" progress closely anymore. I always got the sense that their #1 priority was protecting their intellectual property (the Almighty Number) and #2 was extracting short term revenue. So looking at how to make the experience of using the catalogue better isn't a big deal too them. Too bad.
Now about your iPad comments. . I love mine. Love it. Best device I have. Now, it's taken me forever to type this comment into the box from my iPad, and correct all my mistakes, and fix the crazy autocorrects of "pdf" . And this site loads really slowly, even though it's the fastest stamp site on the net. And I can't seem to leave a comment on "blogger" blogs with it. But I love it. Haha.
Mark
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