Scott, Minkus, Steiner, Harris Album Comparisons

Timm, I've got shelves full of Steiner albums and if one wants a traditional printed album with a spot for every stamp, Steiner is definitely the most economical way to go. Add a couple inexpensive office binders and you're still under $50, or add a couple nice Lighthouse binders and you're still under $100. And I think his pages look nice as well. The somewhat sparse layout of his pages allows each stamp to stand out on its own a little bit more.

That being said, If I had to do it over again, I'd probably go with stockbooks or stock pages, mostly because of space. I also have Steiner pages for The Netherlands and I'm reasonably confident that you could fit all of their issues in one 64-page stockbook. They're about $35 on Amazon including shipping, no binder necessary, no need to buy hinges or mounts, and it would take up about a third of the shelf space as compared to Steiner pages. The downside is that you've got to figure out for yourself how to lay out the pages as there's no designated spaces for particular stamps. I'll continue to use my Steiner pages that I've already printed, but any new collections are going into a stockbook.

But that is half the fun of working with stockbooks/vario pages, you get to customize the pages exactly as you want, without having to deal with all the extra cost of paper, mounts etc.

I probably will make the change to Vario pages at some point, particularly as some areas of my collection grow. For me the hard part with a bound stockbook is how to plot out the pages so as to avoid having to move stamps around later. It's not such a big deal when a stockbook is mostly empty, but as it grows fuller, moving stamps around becomes a much bigger pain. I'm really not at that point yet (I'm all of about 2 months into full-blown WW collecting) but I know I'll get there. I may just start using Vario pages and use the stockbooks as feeder albums, or I may just start a new stockbook when the situation warrants. I know Vario pages are more flexible, but I'm balancing that against the fact I'd also have to buy binders and that several different types of pages are needed to accommodate the different stamp sizes. I also find it much easier to place stamps in stockbooks vs. Vario pages

I have Scott International albums which I aim to be able to fill. For countries I specialize in, I like to edit Steiner pages (powerpoint editing after online conversion from pdf to ppt) to put in historical details, borders and sometimes images. Normally for countries I specialize I will have enough extras to fill out most spaces in the Scott International. In my binder with pre-printed albums I initially house vario pages with stamps and philatelic material. When I have enough, everything moves on to pre-printed pages and extras go into Scott International plus some vario pages. This is the plan at least.

Note: Bumped thread.
Don