Stanley Gibbons. Collect Ships on Stamps - Thematic Catalogue

Bolton Peter.
Third Edition. — Stanley Gibbons Publications, 2001. — 436 p. — ISBN: 0-85259-486-0.As this third edition of Collect Ships on Stamps is published, I must first apologise for the delay between it being "reported" and its actual arrival. An accident during production has led to it being completely reset, with all the illustrations replaced. This has, of necessity, taken far longer than the
normal update process and has, for example, resulted in the stamps being repriced twice!
Peter Bolton and his helpers from the Ship Stamp Society have, as always, been very busy providing nautical corrections and additions to the listings, so that there are few major countries included in the catalogue which do not show new information.
Since the second edition appeared in December 1993, more than 1,250 additional ship stamps have been recorded, bringing the total of those in the new edition to over 14,250. The number of named ships now stands at 3,850, including 850 vessels which have either been identified or issued since the previous catalogue. These all appear in the Index section, together with reference by ship type under forty different headings.
Prices shown in this catalogue are based on those from the 2001 edition of Stamps of the World, which now provides a three volume simplified listing for both Commonwealth and Foreign issues, in one alphabetical sequence.
Collecting ships on stamps remains one of the most popular aspects of thematic collecting. The range of craft depicted is immense, everything from dug-out canoes to nuclear submarines, and the amount of material is now so extensive that it is possible to form considerable collections based on such sub-themes as naval vessels, historic sailing ships or river craft. Hopefully this expanded third edition will encourage more collectors to sign on for one of the most interesting aspects of philately.