Latin American Philatelic Resources – A Major Update

When I first launched this website ten years ago, I added the Resources section you see on the menu bar above. The idea was to provide a reasonably detailed overview of the various reference points collectors could use – catalogues, societies and the rest – in pursuing Latin American philately.

As time went on, I made occasional updates as things changed and new publications came to light, but it’s clear I haven’t kept pace. So, time for a major overhaul.

New catalogues, new journals, new or revived societies: it’s gratifying to see how much more is now available to collectors compared to ten years ago. It seems that if there’s one thing collectors like to do when they’re not collecting, it’s writing about collecting.

In the age of AI, there’s a case to be made that compiling this kind of resource is no longer necessary. Surely a few carefully crafted questions to Claude or ChatGPT will turn up everything that’s out there?

Well, not quite. Some of these resources are poorly indexed and aren’t reliably retrieved by AI unless you happen to ask exactly the right question. Discovery is often made by reading an article and simply stumbling across something of interest, rather than by actively searching for it. By collating these resources here, I hope to give a little more visibility to some hidden gems.

AI also can’t offer a single, considered human opinion – only a regurgitated amalgam of others’. One change I’ve made this time round is to add more detail on publications ‘beyond the catalogue’ that I personally find useful. So, a little more opinion this time, not just the straight facts.

For each country, I focus on four sections:

Philatelic Societies

A strong philatelic society relies on two things above all: leadership and enthusiasm. Some have gone quiet, but many remain active and engaged.

Many societies have, in recent years, taken the step of digitising back issues of their journals. Paired with a reliable index, this opens up fields of research that were previously difficult to access. Provided the journal isn’t paywalled, AI tools can now interrogate Spanish-language journals, retrieve their contents, and translate them into English. And vice-versa. The possibilities here are considerable.

Specialised Catalogues

Nearly every Latin American country has had its own specialised catalogue at some point, though update frequency varies considerably. Haiti appears to be the only country still waiting for its first specialised catalogue editor.

What I haven’t done is provide details on where to buy catalogues or other publications. Many are long out of print, having only ever been issued in limited runs, so second-hand marketplaces or specialist philatelic booksellers are the obvious places to try. A quick Google search is the first step; patience is often needed, but copies of most works turn up eventually.

If you’re still struggling to find something, drop me a note and I’ll help if I can.

One increasing trend is the publication of digital catalogues. These don’t need to wait for the next edition before being updated, have no limitations on space and often improve significantly on image count over their paper cousins. Some are chargeable but many are entirely free or a benefit of society membership.

Useful Websites

There are often a number of enthusiast websites that focus on any given country, though I’ve been selective in what I recommend – genuinely useful sites, not an arbitrary list of links.

Facebook Groups are a good case in point. There are well over a thousand philatelic Facebook Groups, some with tens of thousands of members (one with well over 100,000). The shift from organised to unorganised philately continues apace. I’ve only included groups with more of a lean toward earlier issues, and only where there’s a reasonable level of activity – many have little engagement and only sporadic posts.

I’ve left out general philately sites and those focused on new issues. Many had a burst of enthusiasm at launch but now sit largely neglected.

A few excellent sites have disappeared altogether, taking valuable content down with them. Not all is lost, however: the Wayback Machine at archive.org lets you explore a snapshot of a site as it once was, though you’ll need its exact web address. Where this applies, I’ve noted the domain and flagged that you’ll need to use the Wayback Machine to retrieve it.

Useful Publications

I’ve been highly selective here and deliberately avoided trying to build a full bibliography: that’s a job better done elsewhere. These are simply a handful of publications I personally find useful and which make good companions to a specialised catalogue. Many are privately printed in small numbers and, as with the catalogues, editions are often out of print but can usually be tracked down with a little googling and patience.

Some of the older titles have since been built on by later scholars, who have unearthed new facts or successfully contested earlier findings as fresh information has come to light. These often-downloadable articles are too numerous to list here and will have to wait for another day.

New and useful titles still reach the market each year too, some with the kind of sumptuous, coffee-table-book colour illustration that would have been unthinkable a generation ago.

If you know of a resource that you think should be included, or spot one that’s slipped out of date, I’d be glad to hear about it. Drop me a line via the Contact page.

My plan over the coming months is to release these updates in batches, a few countries at a time. I’ll also be adding a new section covering Revenues in due course. Once all twenty republics are updated, I’ll then amalgamate the sections and replace the outdated Resources section in the menu.

If you are not a subscriber and want to be alerted to these country updates as they appear, please complete the subscription box at the top of this page. The first updates will cover Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil and will be sent out next week.