Tying It All Together!

Nigel, Coles and Walker are the holy grail of reference for Postal Cancellations. Unfortunately, they're out of my financial league these days. Have you been to the Turkish Post Museum in Ankara? I keep meaning to do that every time I'm back in Turkey but haven't yet had the chance. Ottoman material is fascinating!

Hi babateacher,

The Minkus line as far back as I can remember was always a little less expensive than Scott. Why someone prefers one brand over the other is anyone's guess.

Personally I do not use either Minkus, Scott or any other album. If I did use a pre-printed album, I probably would have preferred Minkus because of the chronological order and the fact that if a set contained regular issue and air mail they were on the same page and not in a different album.

Since the late 40's I have used only quadrilled pages. For that I preferred the Minkus pages for a few reasons. First of all they were 8-1/2 x 11 and three hole punched. They were heavier stock than any other pages and the mounting area was the largest of any.

Since the Minkus sales, the quadrille page formats were being changed like crazy. I found an independent local printer and we worked out a very nice quadrilled page on card stock.

I would start making my own pages as those shown here but I feel that it is too late to change horses. I have too much to re-mount and the cost would be excessive since everything is mounted in a Showgard mount.

Jerry B

Since I plan on restarting a collection, I can't decide whether to buy a Harris, Mystic, or another cheap-o worldwide album. I generally prefer to make my own pages and I use the album just for the purpose of keeping things in order. I like the quadrilled pages. My Turkish material pretty much cuts off at 1996 (I think) because that's the last year I could get Minkus pages for it. I may buy some blank/quad pages and make some for the years following. That's another project for another time.

Hi babateacher,

I would not buy a Harris album, I do not think you will like it, and I believe that the Mystic album is US only.

If you do not want to make your own pages one of the best web sites for pages is Bill Steiner's http://www.stampalbums.com/ .
For a $30 yearly subscription you cannot beat it. He has WorldWide pages and for your yearly subscription you can download anything you wish.

Jerry B

$30 a year sounds really reasonable. I wonder if I can find archive type acid free paper here. Or else, I'd have to go to a printer and have pages cut a little thicker than the normal A-4 printer paper.

Hi babateacher,

I do not understand why you have to cut the paper. Going to a local independent printer to get paper is not a bad idea. However, office supply stores will also have paper. I personally tend to go to printers because I feel that they know more about paper than the office supply clerks. You may also find paper by Googling and someone in the group may have a source, if they answer.

For my pages I used a 65lb natural (not white, sort of cream color) paper.

Jerry B

Jerry
Lucky for me, I found reams of it already. I just got back from the Office Supply store. This stuff is "Double A" brand. A4 size 80gsm. It's alot thicker than normal copier/printer paper. for almost 5 bucks a ream, it should be! Anyhow, now we'll see about purchasing membership and printing. I was going to go to a printer because when I was in Turkey, I had a local printer who knocked me off good copies of minkus quadrilled pages. :)