Quick Questions

thanks for the heads up! About how much stamps would you say fit on 1 isle?

I have bought stock books from this seller in the past. You might be interested.

http://shop.ebay.com/kingbrookm.b.s...rom=&_ipg=25

This varies considerably with the size of the stockbook, of course.

But for 9" wide stockbooks, for the typical-sized stamps, in each strip you can approximately fit --

4 horizontal commemoratives
5 vertical commemoratives
8 definitives

If you choose to get the stockbooks with the clear strips, I would suggest avoiding the ones with clear interleaving. Some collectors like the clear interleaving because they can see both pages at the same time. You cannot do that with glassine interleaves. The clear plastic interleaving between pages can easily accidentally folded/creased, and once that happens it looks really yucky.

Others may have a different opinion/experience.

I prefer black pages with clear strips and glassine interleaves.

hey guys,
was just doing some research and I happen to bump into this post.

http://www.stampcollectingblog.com/...ok-pages.php

Have you guys had any problems with this before?

I just noticed it looks like what ryan was talking about in his post.

Hello everyone,

I was currently looking at stamps from Cuba, and I happen to come across this site that has souvenir sheets. I've always wondered as far as souvenir sheets does everybody mostly leave them untouched the way they come or do some collectors actually cut the stamp out of the whole sheet? I think it defeats the purpose, but you never know.

The great majority of collectors leave the S/S intact. If you cut them out, be aware that you will basically be destroying the resale value.

However, your stamps, your enjoyment, collect what you want the way you want!

If enjoyment is your primary goal, then it doesn't matter whether you keep the selvage on/off; keep blocks intact or separate; use mounts, hinges, tape, or staple gun.

Enjoy your stamps!

k

This is a quality control problem that affects certain types of black stockbook pages, but it is not a widespread problem.

Almost all the Western manufactured stockbooks have the strips glued in place. I have always preferred the kind where the strips are embedded into the stockbook, but those are not easy to acquire.

It happens to blackpage stockbooks because the black page surface is significantly different from the white pages. This is rather unavoidable, unless you go to completely plastic black pages (e.g., Vario stocksheets).

However, with some precautions you can keep this problem with black stockbooks under control:

1. Never insert stamps more than one deep (i.e., don't stack stamps or overlap stamp inside the strip). Do not insert stamps still "on cover/piece", nor insert stamps with selvage bent back behind.

2. Don't shove the stamp forcefully all the way down to the bottom of the strip. Give it at least 1 mm spacing. With experience, you'll know how far down the stamp needs to go to keep it from sliding around when you turn the pages.

3. When you first get the stockbook, quickly examine each page and the strips to see if any part of the strip is starting to get unglued from the page (you will see a noticeable black shade difference). Just use your fingernail (try flat side first, use fingernail tip only when necessary) and press/slide along the glued edge. With practice, you can figure out how to do it without wrinkling the strip.

4. When enjoying your collection, if you see some strips getting detached, pull out the stamps and do the fingernail trick again.

The key is prevention, and quick action when you notice them starting to pop up. The longer they stay popped up, gunk will settled on the glued parts and you won't be able to push them together again. Do it early, and the glue will still hold pretty well.

I currently have about 30+ of these black 48-page stockbooks for part of my collection. About half were actually purchased discounted over 2/3 off because the seller saw the unglueing problem beforehand and labeled them as 2nds. I just carefully pressed the strips back into place, and it's RARELY been a problem and I saved a bundle. I might notice a short part of the strip (<0.5cm) begin popping out once or twice a year for the problem stockbooks. Just press, and no problem. Again, just don't ignore it -- that's when it will become a problem.

I prefer the black stockbooks because it "frames" the stamp better, especially imperforate stamps.

That's been my experience. Others may have a different take.