Storing And Organizing Stamps By Scott Number Ideas

There is a lot more to building a stamp collection . There is a few factors that need attention . First is building that collection is a long term decision ,you have to think in terms of many years of having a method you feel comfortable with for many years . That is why I said it has to be able to expand over time .
Second important thing is the aviablity of stamp supplies , are those pages ,binders ,hinges, dealer cards , mounts software { I have three seperate programs on disk ,one never opened of the Steiner Pages } again is your system of organization able to stand for 10 or 20 years , or are you depended on one vendor or business for supplies .

Geoff Ha said, "One thing you might consider is NOT putting your stamps in Scott catalogue order, but arranging them logically, so that issues from a period sit together, rather than being artificially separated by the odd discrete categories such as air-mail or charity stamps that Scott uses."

Not just an interesting idea, but exactly the way I organize all my collections, even those on Scott album pages!

It's really silly of the early Scott catalogue people to have removed semis and air mails out of their proper chronology and put them into a segregated section at the back of the catalogue and album. It makes no sense. These stamps were in use at the same time as regular and commemorative stamps, both of which are presented chronologically together and not in separate categories. Stamps issued and used at the same time belong together if you want to represent stamps topics and designs stamps as they were and as t hey changed at different times.

I'm referring to "postage" stamps so I exclude postage dues and some others. I just move the pages to where they should be in my album. It produces a much more harmonious album presentation.

Minkus was much smarter about this since they included semis and airs with all the others in the same way they are sold at the post office which is all together in their time period. Other album makers also combine these stamps.

Angore said, "the Scott Minuteman entry album is almost $350. A Scott National (just 4 binders) is $722 so it will cost more in binders due to the proprietary design."

It's certainly true that even basic albums like these have become very expensive (although really good stamp albums have never been inexpensive!). And even a single country in a Lighthouse or Davo or other brand of album can sometimes run into the thousands of dollars! But I often make my own albums much more cheaply.

One approach as mentioned is simply to use blank albums. The cost is a fraction of these other albums.

But if you like printed albums as I do, there is nothing to stop you from printing "computer printed" album pages onto the appropriate blank pages for whatever binders you've chosen. It will be much less expensive, and you can house your pages in actual stamp album binders like Scott's green binders and others as long as you print on blank pages that fit those binders. And they will look professional with no loss of quality.

I've printed out my own pages for many Scott and some Davo albums using Bill Steiner's page layouts. I could do that for Lighthouse binders, too. The cost is the cost of subscribing to the Steiner pages plus the cost of blank pages plus the cost of photocopying plus a binder or two. Used binders lowers the cost even more. It works out to well under a dollar per page.

Here are my stats on what this costs for different brands of binders and pages:

COST of 250 album pages. Cost includes per-sheet cost of blank paper + per-sheet photocopy costs. New or used binders to house your album pages in will cost extra.

Home-printed Steiner layouts on 8.5x11" cardstock @15-20c per page = $50
Steiner-printed Specialty 10x11.5" Steiner-layout pages (35c ea) = $90
Scott's own Specialty pages (c. 65c ea) = $170
Self-printing on Scott blank pages (50c paper+25c prtng) = $188
Self-printing on Davo blanks (70c paper + 25c prntg) = $238
Self-printing on Lighthouse blanks (80c paper+25c printing ea) = $263

Why self-print if the published pages cost about the same? Because I prefer Steiner's stamps identifications (which Scott pages lack). And I improve Steiner's pages by printing on blank pages with a better border (Scott's is one of my favorites). And I edit Steiner's page information by changing his font and its size. And I sometimes omit stamps I don't want to collect.

How to do this? I convert Steiner page layouts to Word documents using any of a number of PDF to Word websites (currently PDF Candy works best). After that, editing the pages in Word is pretty easy. In Word, "Select All" to change the font and its size on all pages. Highlight the existing page border on each page one by one and "delete" it page by page. Print out the resulting pages and use them as your 'originals' to print onto your chosen blank album paper (at Fedex or wherever) one page at a time. Yes, it does take some time.