Bob; At one time I thought that the Universal Numbering System project that was presented at a convention forum two years ago had some promise. It would appear that the project has stalled dead in it's tracks as there does not seem to be any wide-spread enthusiastic collector support for it. In addition, I think a lot of cataloguers were not supportive of changing over all their current numbering systems that most collectors have referenced their individual collections to. I also do not believe that the mainstream collectors are interested in converting over thousands of inventory records to a new system at this point in time.

Plus, for the reasons you have cited, a specialized collection containing many variations would be very difficult to catalog under a universal numbering system.