Comments on: How I Wrote My Catalog

By: Ivo Spanjersberg

Ivo Spanjersberg — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 16:53:16 +0000

Unfortunately Mr. Ross passed away a few years ago, his catalogue is no longer available.

By: Pedro José Etchegaray Avallone

Pedro José Etchegaray Avallone — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 18:13:38 +0000

¿Cómo obtengo tu catálogo de Uruguay?

By: Theo J.F. Schalke

Theo J.F. Schalke — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 09:52:34 +0000

Love the background article, AND Joe’s response to it.
Was allowed to use Joe’s work on the Allied Military Government Travel Permits to write a publication about this subject and the revenues used (not a catalogue, but stil)
As for the (still valid?) request from Joe for revenues of Africa independent countries: I collect Belgian Congo revenues, and some of the countries that came from that region after independence. Just contact me and let me know what I can do to help.

By: shivshankar nair

shivshankar nair — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 16:44:46 +0000

Joe,
Great site. i just started collecting Panama revenues and realised i couldnt find any catalogs, except a telegraph one. Happy to assist in your own production, with stuff as i buy them, present focus being on proofs and essays

By: Joe Ross

Joe Ross — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 06:24:29 +0000

It is a very nice commentary on my article. My original motivation in writing a catalog was due to lack of revenue catalogs for many countries and the difficulty to identify many items. Forbin’s catalog of 1915 was the standard basis for collecting still in the 1970’s. Since I wrote this article, ‘How to Write a Catalog’ I have written and self published more than ten revenue catalogs and assisted in getting other writers to publish their knowledge. My efforts include small articles as editor of the CALREV newsletter for more than ten years and occasional articles for the ARA, SRS and RJGB. There is a need for people like Clive Akerman, John Barefoot and others to write.

There is also a need to write about the modern revenues. For example take Africa after many countries became independent in 1957 and later they changed names. The difficulty is to obtain revenues from this region. Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Burundi Ubangi Shari, Central African Republic ofCentral African Empire,Cameroon,T.F.A.I., Djibouti,Senegal, Gold Coast, Republic of Guinea, Republic of Benin, Gabon, Spanish Guinea,Republic of Chad, Belgium Congo, Zaire, French Congo, Central Equatoria, Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Madagascar, Tanzania, Sao Thomas and Primcipe, Republique de Togolaise. These are not all of the independent countries. I have one or more stamps from those listed above. How many revenue stamps from the newly independent African countries do you have? Have you written about them to the various revenue newsletters? Gradually my plans are to write and scan the stamps collected. Can you help?

By: Will MacKinnon

Will MacKinnon — Sun, 17 Jun 2018 11:34:03 +0000

Nice little article, reads well. I hope there are a few archives around that are collecting all these small specialized catalogues. Maybe there could be a pay access site for people to access these resources as needed. Catalogues serve as much as education resources as collectors resources. It seems that a lot of use may come from people who need to learn the basics about a specialized area before they are willing to commit to a catalog perches. There has to be a way to drum up fair compensation for the authors and increase the distribution of the information. Of course as collectors we all hope to discover that rare or uncommon item instead of buying it. That goes for catalogues as well as collectable stamps, little or unknown stamps or tidbits of stamp history.