Japan Stamp Catalog

Richard Babin wrote:
The lastest Stanley Gibbons catalog for Japan [& Korea] was issued in
1997. I would expect them to issue a new edition soon, but they do not
have it on their list of upcoming publications (which runs through
2004). Also, I am pretty sure that this catalog is not in color. You
can order this from a number of on-line stamp dealers, as well as from
SG themselves http://www.stanleygibbons.com/.



I own Stanley Gibbons Part 18 Japan & Korea 4th Edition, 1997. The
catalog is not in color.

Well, my feeling is that color in stamp catalogs is nice, but certainly
not necessary. It's not like they can really match the colors that well
anyway.

= Eric

Well, my feeling is that color in stamp catalogs is nice, but certainly
not necessary. It's not like they can really match the colors that well
anyway.

Color stamp catalogues probably *are* useless from a specialist's point of
view; color printing good enough to illustrate subtle nuances in shade would
be prohibitively expensive, and even then would be incomplete. However, I
find general catalogues in color to be much easier and pleasurable to use
than those without color.

Color conveys huge amounts of sensory information; hence the popularity of
color vision! I am very fond of classic black-and-white photography, simply
because the images *lack* information and thus engage the mind of the viewer
more completely, whereas color photographs provide just about all of the
information you need.

Anyway, if I have a puzzling stamp printed in green, it's very easy to scan
a page in a color catalogue and ignore anything that isn't green. Not a big
deal, but useful. Stamp Catalogue Blindness (SCB) would not be as serious a
problem if the catalogues were printed in color; those little pocket-size
philatelic white canes would become collector's items, and philatelic
seeing-eye dogs would have to find other employment. (Ever wonder why
they're called "seeing-eye" dogs? Seems redundant to me! Wouldn't "seeing
dogs" or "eye dogs" be sufficient?)

It's not really on topic, but I just found a fascinating interactive web
site about color vision: http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors.

Bob