The Collection That Outgrew a Spreadsheet
A serious philatelist working across multiple countries — US definitives, British commemoratives, early German states, French Airmails — eventually reaches the point where a spreadsheet fails. The spreadsheet cannot sort US Scott numbers in true catalog sequence when the numbers include letter suffixes (Scott 1, 1A, 2, 2A). It cannot display the stamp image alongside the record. It cannot group by issuing country while sorting by Scott number within each country. And it absolutely cannot handle the sort order disambiguation that the Sort Order integer field solves here.
The Sort Order field is the design decision that separates a philatelic database built by someone who actually works with catalog numbers from one built by someone who does not. Scott numbers are nominally numeric but include letter suffixes, coil variants, and reissue designations that do not sort correctly alphabetically or numerically. Assigning a clean integer sort order — 100 for Scott 1, 101 for Scott 1A, 200 for Scott 2, 201 for Scott 2A — allows the database to sort in true catalog sequence without any string sorting gymnastics.
MNH, MH, and Used as the Condition Baseline
Mint Never Hinged, Mint Hinged, and Used are the three fundamental philatelic condition categories that determine value before grade is even considered. A VF-XF MNH example of a classic US commemorative is worth multiples of the same stamp in F-VF MH. A VG Used example of the same stamp may be worth a fraction of either — or may be the only copy most collectors will ever own of a genuinely rare stamp.
Grade — VG, Fine, VF, XF, Poor (Space Filler) — applies within each condition category and determines the final valuation against the Scott catalog. A Fine MNH example might catalog at 80% of Scott catalog value as a general rule of thumb; an XF MNH might command a premium above catalog; a Space Filler exists in the collection only to hold the place until a better example is located.
The catalogue value field is denominated in USD with a Scott 2009 reference note in the hint. This is the correct approach for a working collection database: the catalogue value is point-in-time data from a specific edition, and recording which edition's value was used is essential for comparing records across a collection that was built over years with different catalogue editions. Price Paid against Catalogue Value gives you the acquisition discount or premium for each piece — the data that tells you whether your buying has been disciplined.
Format as the Dimension That Multiplies Value
Format — Single Stamp, Pair, Coil Pair, Line Pair, Block of Four, Block of Six, Plate Block, Full Sheet, Mini-Sheet, Souvenir Sheet, Strip, On Cover, First Day Cover, Booklet Pane — is the field that captures the presentation that dramatically affects valuation for many stamps. A plate block of a US classic definitive is worth several times the value of a single; a first day cover of a commemorative has collector value independent of the stamp's catalog value; an on-cover example of a classic foreign stamp may be the only form that shows the genuine postal use context.
The First Day Cover and On Cover designations are where condition and grade become more complex. An FDC is graded on cachet quality, address clarity, cancellation crispness, and stamp centering — dimensions that the Condition and Grade fields handle adequately for stamps in standard condition classification but may require additional Notes field commentary for covers.
Perforation as the Technical Identification Layer
Perforation as free text — "11", "10.5", "11 x 10.5", "Imperf." — captures the measurement dimension that distinguishes varieties that look identical to the naked eye but differ in catalog value by an order of magnitude. The 1869 US 15-cent stamp with inverted center (Scott 119) is an extreme example; more commonly, collectors encounter the situation where two examples of what appears to be the same stamp have different perf measurements that indicate they are different catalog varieties worth different amounts. The perforation field as free text handles the full range of possibilities — compound perfs, straight edges, imperforate examples — without constraining input to a fixed choice that would miss the edge cases.
Series as a free-text field groups stamps issued together as part of the same thematic or definitive series — the 1938 US Presidential Series, the British Machin definitives, the French Art series — which is the grouping dimension that complements the catalog number sort order.