Catalog Your Stamp Collection

⚠️ “Mint” appears twice on the form and means two different things

Read this before you fill anything in, because it is the one thing on the page that will trip you up.

A stamp has a Mint or used field — Mint (unused) or Used (postmarked) — which is philately’s meaning: whether it was ever cancelled. It also has the app’s universal Condition control, whose top value is also called Mint, meaning pristine.

So a perfectly preserved used stamp is Condition: Mint and Mint or used: Used, which reads like a contradiction and is not. Fill both anyway; the two answer different questions and a buyer wants both.

What a stamp records

The type is Stamps — 📮 in the picker — and it is one of the better-informed schemas in the app. Nine fields, and the vocabulary is the hobby’s own.

The catalogue number is the identifier

Catalogue number is the field to fill first, and its placeholder tells you who wrote it: Scott #C3 — the Inverted Jenny. A Scott, Stanley Gibbons or Michel number is the only description of a stamp that two collectors will agree on, where “1918 24-cent airmail” leaves room to argue.

Country of origin, Year issued and Denomination / face value sit beside it — face value as free text, so 24 cents and 1 penny both fit as written.

Expertization has four fields of its own

This is the part that shows someone knew the hobby. Certificate / expertization is a yes/no, Certifying body is a real list — Philatelic Foundation, APS, PSE, BPA, Other — and there is a Certificate number beside them.

For anything valuable that matters more than condition does: a certificate is what separates a genuine classic from a forgery or a regummed copy, and having it on fields means a certified shelf is sortable rather than searchable by eye.

⚠️ Where does gum condition go?

The description, and it is the real omission. There is no field for MNH, MH, or no gum — and for mint classics the gum is frequently most of the value. Never-hinged and hinged copies of the same stamp are different prices, sometimes by multiples.

Nor is there a field for centering (F, VF, XF, Superb, or a PSE numerical grade), perforation or watermark — the three that separate varieties of the same catalogue number.

Write them at the front of the description, in a fixed order so a shelf reads consistently: MNH · VF centering · perf 11 · wmk 191. Then photograph the back. A photograph of the gum is better evidence than a dropdown would be, because hinge remnants and regumming are visible things a buyer wants to look at rather than take on trust.

What is Collected Year for?

When you acquired it, as distinct from when it was issued. Stamps got a named year of their own when the universal one was removed, because “year” on a stamp means the issue and nothing else — so the acquisition date needed a box that could not be confused with it.

Do it in TrophyShelf

1. Create a collection per country or era📮 Stamps in the picker. Country, reign or issue — whichever way the album is already arranged.
2. Photograph front and backFront square on, back for the gum and any hinge remnant, plus the certificate if there is one. Up to 10 photos.
3. Fill the catalogue number firstScott #C3, or the SG or Michel equivalent. It is the identifier everything else hangs off.
4. Answer mint-or-used, then conditionThey are different questions. A pristine cancelled stamp is Condition Mint and Mint-or-used Used.
5. Put gum and centering in the descriptionMNH · VF centering · perf 11 at the front, same order every time. None of the four has a field, and all four are priced.