Regular readers of this column know that one of my pet philatelic peeves is that the Scott catalog listings of United States stamps is unnecessarily complex, and that that complexity makes our hobby less popular than it could be. To have made the types of the one cent 1851 separate major catalog numbers is silly. The grills should be listed as minor varieties. The Bank Note issues (#134-218) are really one set of stamps specialized beyond logic. The Special Printings and Reissues are just that—special printings and reissues—and do not deserve major catalog status. And the Washington-Franklin twentieth century issues are a nightmare of inconsistent and confusing listings. If Scott made this mess out of the listings of any other major country, no one would collect it.
Lest you think that I’m a lone cry in the wilderness on this issue, be aware that the Scott listings for United States stamps used to be a major issue in serious US collecting circles. Newer US collectors have no perspective of the early arguments on this issue and so accept the catalog listings as they are, as if they were the received wisdom of the philatelic Moses. But there was a time when even Scott themself thought seriously of changing the listings. Illustrated here is an album Scott put out in 1930, simplifying the catalog listings. Like many good ideas, it never caught on, and today, neatly, all US collectors collect by the messiest listings possible.
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