The Bottom Line: Not as good as the industry standard, Scott Catalog, and therefore not worth your money. It is acceptable, but you will regret not buying Scott if you buy this one.
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it shouldn't form the basis for a purchase decision. You should ask yourself, "why should I buy a copy," when you can just as well buy the original. Those statements exemplify the problems that you face with this book.
Since this book is primarily a catalog, its purpose is to list stamp prices, rather than teach you about stamp collecting. With that in mind, a philatelist (stamp collector) should look for three main features in a stamp catalog: industry standard indexing, easy identification, complete pricing at various grade levels. While this book does an acceptable job at all of these tasks, it is really a second choice and why should you ever pick your second choice?
Industry standard indexing - If you want to buy or sell a certain stamp, you need an easy way to identify it. Scott (the leading stamp catalog company) has created a numbering system that refers to each stamp. For example, if I had the Marilyn Monroe 32c stamp from 1995, I could just say Scott #2967 and you would know exactly what I was talking about. This number is also listed in most stamp albums so if you had a blank spot in your album and went to a stamp shop and asked for #1749, the dealer would immediately know you wanted "dance ballet" instead of "dance theater" (#1750) which looks very similar. This book uses the Scott numbering system which makes it very helpful. At the same time, why use another book, when you can use the Scott Catalog itself?
Easy identification - If you are looking at some unidentified stamps, you want to be able to know exactly which one you have. If you had an Olympic hockey stamp, was it #2070 (the 1984 Olympics version) or #2811 (the 1994 version). The values are different (actually the newer one if worth more) and so you need a picture or other information so that you can find out which you have (since they don't have dates on them). This book, like the Scott Catalog, has pictures of a number of stamps. Unfortunately, while Scott shows at least one picture of every stamp, this book only shows a fraction of them. Again, they have the right idea, they just don't go far enough. Also, they list a few versions of each stamp, but not every version in existence which is important because things like one extra perforation hole can result in a stamp that is valued 10 times more than the other.
Complete pricing - As noted above, minor differences in a stamp can result is very different values. If a book doesn't show enough possible values, then you have to guess as to the value of the exact stamp you have. This is very dangerous because without a pricing standard you can end up paying way too much or selling for way too cheap. Scott has a complete set of values and ranges while this book has them only for certain stamps. More importantly, almost everyone in the industry uses the pricing in the Scott Catalog (Normally, they sell for a certain percentage of the listed price and buy or a lower percentage). Because of this, if you have the Scott Catalog, you can make a good estimate of its valuation. With this book, you might end up making a mistake.
Therefore, although this book does a fairly good job of meeting the basic requirements, it does still fall a bit short of the industry standard. Why would you want to buy a copy why you can buy the original. Buy the Scott Catalog instead and you will immediately begin to benefit.
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