New Album Purchase For My Wife

Months ago my son and I were sitting around the table sorting and soaking when my wife came and sat down to look at some stamps. Now let me first explain that my wife has zero hobbies with the exception of dabbling in scrap-booking for which I have purchased thousands of dollars of supplies/accessories/crikits/cartridges hardware ect for. My son and I both picked on her exclaiming that she was fickle and showed no interest in anything but work and the real housewives shows.

She then said that maybe she should pick up stamping and I was more than happy to pull out the stock box of stamps of countries that my son or myself did not collect and explained to her that she was more than welcome to grab any country not already collected by either of us. She spent hours going through the envelopes and decided she liked the stamps from Czechoslovakia.

I had pondered the idea of creating her an album from scratch like we did for our countries, but I thought the effort would be in vain due to her fickle attitude towards "time sinks". My solution was to purchase a collection or a used album and let her work off of that. Well I have searched for sometime now to find an inexpensive solution and this week one came along.

On ebay I found an album. It's a Minkus (I know not preferred and probably the least complete as far as whats covered compared to Scott) but it was really cheap or at least that's what I think. Sadly I do not have the link to the auction right off hand, but I wanted to know if you guys think I did ok.

It's a Minkus brown three ring album with pages up to 2004, and from what I could see in the auction pictures had a great deal of stamps in it already with many mint and a few souvenir sheets as well. I picked it up for 49.99 with free shipping. Does this seem pretty reasonable? Most of the albums I have seen were all Scott specialty series so I really didn't have much to match against as far a price since they were all in the $200 range with days to go on the auction.

Also when I get it. Do you think I should remove the stamps and let her attempt an ID or just let her fill in the blanks? I know that's kinda a personal decision but I'm curious if any of you have attempted the same for a spouse or child entering the collecting field.

Thanks
Chief

The problem with a Minkus album, is that the numbers are not Scott Catalog numbers. She will need to work hand and hand with the Scotts, in order purchase new stamps for the album. I would leave the existing stamps in the album, and work around them.

Its sure nice to see a happy stamping family

If it all goes to pot and she doesn't really take off with it I'm sure the album will fit well into my collection of Germany, France, Austria.

$50 for any specialized album is a good deal. Minkus is no longer in business, but their albums are still very popular. The fact that you purchased yours with stamps is an added bonus. Well done!

Do you know at what point their pages stop? I have been looking for dealers with the supplements to see how far I can get the album pages to.

some people still make minkus supplements.
google around
you did very good.

For myself personally Chief, I would leave the stamps in that are already there and if your wife's interest is serious enough, then it would be a pleasant challenge for her to fill in the missing spaces.

My opinion of course.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Hi Chief.Fontenot


Amos Publishing (Scott) bought Minkus and now sell Minkus pages. I assume the pages now have Scott numbers or maybe none at all. Here is the link for the Minkus pages:

http://www.amosadvantage.com/scottonline/find.asp?

In the search box type minkus pages: worldwide and click on the search button.

Note that Amos Advantage is the same as Scott.

Jerry B

Chief,

As an alternative to trying to find additional album supplements, your wife could collect Czechoslovakia up to its separation into Slovakia and the Czech Republic in 1993.

Steve

My Guatemala album is a Minkus of the type you describe..my wife bought it for me as a Christmas present from Subway stamps..i just checked and it goes up to 1991 so thats how long I have had it...regardless of what the crazy G man says..there are no catalog numbers scott or minkus in the book...just pictures...my only complaint with it is the quality of the pictures of the stamps..some are quite dark and hard to distinquish..but I have added plenty of quadrille pages to the back..that works for me !

Oh No ! the G man is correct ..there are minkus numbers..i just never paid any attention to them !