Scott Publishing Company has been integral to collecting stamps in the United States. J. Walter Scott was one of the first stamp dealers, and his publishing company and catalogs grew out of the full service stamp dealing company that he ran beginning in the 1860s. Scott was an innovator, and the Scott companies were great promoters of philately during our hobby's most expansive period.
Albums were a natural progression from Scott's price list and were really no great innovation. By 1920, Scott was pretty much out of the stamp sales business and pretty much totally a publishing company. About 1930, Scott began a plan to invigorate our hobby and help it cross the threshold from a niche activity to a mainstream hobby. The primary vector for this was the Scott Specialty series of albums. Scott had been producing an International Album for many years. This was originally a single volume album for all the stamps in the world. As there came to be too many stamps, and many of them far more costly than would fit the budget of the average collector, Scott began producing an International Junior album, modified so that more collectors could fill it up. But it was Scott issuing the Specialty Series that was the game changer, and a risky one at that. Scott's calculation was that there were enough collectors who could be encouraged to collect single countries, not just the world, and do it with a degree of specialization that would necessitate them buying a single album for that country. Continuing under the editorship of Hugh Clark and designed by his wife Theresa, the albums were neat, well designed, and well printed. They started a generation of collectors in the United States on single country collecting. Hugh Clark (who died in 1956) has never received the credit that he deserved for helping to create our modern hobby. The Specialty Series changed collecting for the better and would not have occurred without him. The Minkus specialty series was a copy of the Scott series, and, being derivative, never would have be printed without Clark blazing the trail.
The Specialty Series was a real risk. Certainly, there were enough US collectors in this country for fine albums—and probably enough for Great Britain and Canada too. But Scott issued specialty albums for South and Central America (and then later expanded those albums into single country albums), never money makers but part of the plan to promote the hobby. And Scott issued a special series of three albums for the newest collecting craze—Airmail stamps. Illustrated above is a copy of the Scott's Air Post Catalog, issued in 1931—a special catalog printed for just airmail collectors—of just 140 pages. This level of philatelic promotion was common to Scott Publishing then. Many things have changed in philately in modern times to make it a comparatively less vigorous hobby than it was. I think the main issue though is that the 1930s had so many forward looking professionals who were looking for ways to promote philately and make it mainstream. Minkus put thirty stamp shops on the first floor of department stores in every major American city. Harris bombarded everyone with a mailbox with low priced and attractive approvals and albums, and Scott promoted the higher end of the hobby with finely produced albums and catalogs. The hobby was young then, and it is quite middle aged now. But there is an old middle age and a young middle age, and it wouldn't hurt if we had a bit more vigor.