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Monday, 16 June 2008

Connoisseur Chapters now available on their website

Last year, I discussed the Connoisseur Catalogue and indicated that a new edition was being prepared and would be made available online.

The time has come. Six Machin chapters (plus one covering pictorial regionals) have now been posted on the website at www.connoisseurcatalog.net. And, for now, they are free!

I haven't had a chance to review them myself, so I'll post comments later. I did want to let everyone know.

--Larry

1 comment:

Machin Man said...

A quick 10 minute browse throgh this online catalogue and I think It may be a winner.

Just one snippet taken from it will give you an idea of the content, but my best advice is to visit yourself.

QUOTE FROM THE ABOUT US SECTION

The Connoisseur Catalogue was first published in 1977 in attempt to make what was even at that date a rapidly growing and increasingly complicated subject. Over the years the catalogue has developed adding extra sections to cater for a constantly evolving and expanding area of collection. It now encompasses almost all areas of Great Britain Machin collecting (the Machin head has also been used extensively on Commonwealth stamps, but these are outside the scope of this publication). It tries to steer a mid course between the relatively straightforward listings seen in general and one-country Great Britain catalogues and the incredibly sophisticated and comprehensive handbooks and study circle notes. That is not to say that these publications are not of merit. In fact our opinion is totally to the contrary, they serve an incredibly valuable to resource for collectors whose interest is either narrower or require information in even greater detail than we provide here. The Connoisseur Catalogue puts emphasis on the explanation of why changes in printing process took place (when known) and what effect those changes had to the stamps or booklets in question, with, hopefully, enough description and illustrations of distinguishing features to make identification of different printings easier.

The initial 10 editions of the catalogue and their supplements (from 1977 to 2001) have appeared at increasingly larger gaps, the result of a corresponding increase in the amount of information that the catalogue contains and the pace of development in stamp printing processes. It has now reached a stage where a printed 11th edition of the catalogue has become exceedingly difficult to achieve. The decision was therefore taken to move the Connoisseur Catalogue online, embracing the modern distribution technology that the internet and the worldwide web now allows. This should enable more rapid dissemination of new listings and information, as well as being able to update sections of the catalogue chapter by chapter, something quite impossible to achieve by conventional printed media. It also offers the benefit of enhanced colour illustrations and the ability for collectors to view more than one page of the catalogue at a time – for instance one can examine the listing for a booklet stamp, the pane from which it emanates and the booklet in which that pane was originally issued all at the same time. Although not effective at present, it is hoped that, at a future date, hyperlinks between the stamp and source will be put in place.

Well done BA Alan ltd, Roy