CLASSIC LATIN AMERICA

I recently acquired a very nice collection of pre-1940 Chile that had been collected by SOFICH and cross-referenced by Scott. It clearly shows just how much room for expansion there is by collecting using this specialized work.

The SOFICH catalogue is published by the Chilean Philatelic Society (Sociedad Filatelica de Chile). It is a lavish, large, hardbound tome that takes collecting Chile to the next level. If you’ve been relying on Scott/SG/Michel/Yvert all these years, well, you’ve been missing out.

It really does open up your collecting options ten-fold with no end of varieties and shades not touched upon by the major publishers.

First published in 2000, the catalogue is now in its second edition, released in 2006. This is a substantial work, clocking in at 650 pages, weighing 2.5 kilos and is one of the most comprehensive single-country works available.

The catalogue is broken down into three sections.

The first covers pre-philatelic marks before launching into a thorough breakdown of every issue since the first ‘Colons’ of 1853, including perf and shade varieties, watermarks, designer, engraver and printer details, errors, print runs and so on. The second part deals with the foreign postal agencies, the War in the Pacific issues, tax and telegraph stamps, aerogrammes and postal envelopes. The final part tackles souvenir sheets, FDC envelopes and adhesive labels.

Although pricing is in peso – and is now twelve years old – it is easy to spot where a particular shade or variety holds more value in relation to others in a series.

How does SOFICH compare with Scott, SG and Michel?

To give an idea of the depth over and above the ‘regular’ catalogues, here’s a sample comparison:

The 1915-28 Presidents & Personalities set suddenly presents a completely new challenge. Better check those ‘duplicates…’

The Sociedad Filatelica de Chile have an aspiration to produce a new edition but for now, the 2006 is the final incarnation. They currently have stock and can be contacted at admin@sociedadfilatelica.cl

It is now ten years since Stanley Gibbons printed the fourth and current edition of their ‘Part 20’ South America stamp catalogue. And the separate ‘Part 15’ that covers Central America was last published in 2007.

It looks like these are the final editions of these heavily referenced catalogues.

Stanley Gibbons business has gone through well- documented turmoil in recent years with a misguided focus on concentrating its efforts in selling ‘investment grade’ material to a small but wealthy group of spenders.

Combined with a ridiculous vision of attempting to beat eBay at its own game by spending (read “wasting”) over £10,000,000 on a technology platform that never delivered, the company has gone through an extensive period of mismanagement.

Is an updated catalogue still viable?

To produce new versions of the Latin American catalogues would need:

1. Resource, both human and monetary
2. Knowledge – an in-depth knowledge of Latin American philately
3. Access to reliable prices from which to update the existing figures. And after ten plus years, a comprehensive review would be necessary

I discussed this with Hugh Jefferies, SG’s highly regarded catalogue editor during this month’s Stampex in London and although sympathetic, realistically there is no real prospect of a replacement pair of catalogues on the horizon. Gibbons needs to reconnect with its core base of British and Commonwealth collectors and focus efforts on those parts of the business that will clearly generate a profit.

Thankfully, it looks like it is now on that path.

But perhaps it’s no great deal.

Catalogue prices are always contentious, not least in Latin America where demand, supply and ‘value’ can frequently be out of synch with one another.

The core of the catalogue remains the data, the information that allows identification and catagorization. Sure, this can change as new information comes to light but on the whole, the listings data remains fairly stable. As for new issues (a.k.a wallpaper), well, that’s no great loss in my book.

The existing catalogues still imply comparative value, even if the pricing is somewhat questionable. Relying on them as a firm base for value though is steadily becoming outdated.

How long before existing users switch to other catalogues?

How long will dealers continue to use these prices as indicators of value? Five more years, ten more years? There becomes a point where the prices stated are too detached from reality to be used in day-to-day transactions.

Which is why I have a copy of the Scott Classic Specialized on hand which is updated on an annual basis and bears a closer resemblance to market prices. Just.

The irony, of course, is that in an age when actual selling prices, whether via eBay or auction houses, are freely available to all, catalogue prices become less and less important other than as approximations of value.

Price transparency has never been quite so, er, transparent as it is today.

Gibbons appears to have now sold through all copies of both these catalogues (they are not advertised on their website) so your only source is secondhand. I noticed that some chancer had put a copy up on eBay for £140 recently. Or you could try the example for sale at Abe Books at £309.

Perhaps those investors that SG was courting ought to start investing in their catalogues instead.

Although The Mainsheet covered all twenty republics, its focus was primarily on South America.

In 1980, under the editorship of Bernard Davies, The Central American Newsletter was launched as a sister publication to The Mainsheet. Bernard edited until his death in 1985 when Mike Birks took over the helm.

The CAN ran for twenty years, the final 81^st issue being published in October 2000.

All the Central American countries are represented but Costa Rican, Nicaraguan and Honduran collectors will especially find much of interest.

It is worth mentioning that both The Mainsheet and CAN came with indexes for ease of reference. Again, highly recommended.