Every discipline has a set of arcana that must be learned by those coming into the field. But often, new disciples mistake how much needs to be known in order to be pretty competent. In literature, every generation, since they first wrote, has been in agreement that Shakespeare, Austen, and Dickens have been among the best. Knowing the works of these writers would qualify you as a well-read reader. But each generation of every field of study has more trendy favorites, usually difficult to ascend to and requiring a mastery of the basics of the field to appreciate. These more esoteric subjects sometimes seem to serve as an initiation to prove that you belong to the highest echelon academic club. Thirty years ago in literature, James Joyce was the paradigm of esoteric literature for the erudite. Today, it would probably be Proust or David Forster Wallace.
Philately operates like this too. We have our basics, the classics that all who want to be initiated to the pleasures of our hobby learn and enjoy. Mastery of the Scott catalog is not easy. Most serious stamp collectors learned it so long ago that they have scant recollection of how difficult it was. First, there were the intricacies of stamp identification. No name on the stamps means Great Britain, Soumi means Finland— then perfs and watermarks. Difficult too is the sense over how design characteristics have changed over the years for each country so that if you need to find a stamp that you have never found before in the Scott catalog you don’t need to start at the beginning and turn every page. As an experiment, take a stamp at random and give it to a non-collector to find in the catalog. You will be amazed at how much philatelic knowledge you take for granted.