The Bottom Line
The authors and publisher get it right. Enough information to make you comfortable in buying and selling stamps in an informed way. But not filled with so much information that it will make your head spin. Simple layout, with big color pictures, easy to understand listings, with a few useful advertisements tastefully tucked into the pages make this compact volume an obvious choice for the collector of British stamps.
Pros
- Lists every British philatelic item from 1840 to the present.
- Section A-Z Philatelic Terms has concise definitions of must-know stamp jargon.
- Well laid out: Stamps in front; prestige booklets, country definitives, smilers, etc. in back.
- Big, clear color pictures of stamps; easy to understand listings.
- Realistic prices based on market values, not unrealistic investment valuation.
Cons
- N/A
Description
- This is a catalog for the collector. It contains British stamps complete, yet is so compact you'll take it on buying trips.
- The catalog is a wake-up call for dealers who base their prices on cloudy valuations and formulas divorced from market value.
- Plenty of information, but not so much as to slow down or confuse the novice or intermediate collector of British Stamps.
Guide Review - British Stamp Market Values 2011
There's nothing as unnerving as going to buy or sell stamps based on the catalog values found in a catalog published by a company that has direct affiliation with a retail company selling stamps. But in many cases, that is how the game is played.
British Stamp Market Values 2011 avoids this conflict of interest: its prices are based on a survey of the actual sales of stamps by a number of dealers. Collectors from beginner to advanced using this catalog for buying and selling in the British stamp market benefit from a much more realistic picture of current prices for British stamps and philatelic items.
British Stamp Market Values 2011 by Guy Thomas, et al; Publisher: IPC Media - Focus Network, Croydon, Great Britain. Paperback, 226 pages. Size approx. 6 by 8 inches. ISBN 13: 9780862963422; ISBN 10: 0862963427
Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.