Canada Album Query - Schaubeck? Other? Steiner? Make My Own?

I am thinking of moving my Canadian collection from stock books into something more formal.
I have more modern then classics, though I am trying to slowly add to older Canadians (pretty pricey for me. And, I won't be trying to collect ALL Canadian stamps, but a certainly a good number.

I am torn as to what to do for an album.

Right now, I see a good deal on this - Schaubeck hingeless album pages and binder for Canadam years 1952-1990. What do people think of that? Once with Schaubeck, always with Schaubeck, though, because of the special 6-punch pages.

Or, should I just make my own pages for my own specialty Canada collection? (I have made an exhibit, which took hours, but never made my own pages. Is it hard to do?)

Or - invest in Steiner pages? (I have never used them, but have read good things about them on this forum.)

Or, use another album of choice?

Hi centrestage98

For me personally, I have always preferred to make my own albums. This is now and even before the computer age.

I have scanned images in my albums and use good quality album pages and I can set it up in any way I prefer. I can also include varieties, flyspeck or otherwise in them too and add covers to it as well to dress tha album up even more.

Odd you mention this because I recently just completed what I want to do in my Canadian album as well. I am also in the process of doing a Canadian album specifically for Canadian booklet panes, re-constructed from used singles.

BTW - I use Word from my files to do the pages from.

This is my opinion of course and it would be interesting to see what others have to say in this thread.

Chimo

Bujutsu

To make your own album of pages for a specific country can be very time consuming. I, too, have heard that the Steiner pages are a good value, but have not used them myself. (I have very little mounted in albums; I usually use stock books or Vario-type pages for my material.)

Shaubeck are considered excellent, but also come at a considerable cost and depending on the quality and/or size of a collection, the dollar amount invested in those pages may become an issue.

I have found that many of the older Canadian-only stamp albums are out of print. However, it was mentioned in a previous thread that this site is a good option for some free Canadian album pages. Although the site is in French, it is easy enough to navigate (especially with some help from Google translate):

http://tim.mond.free.fr/w_canada/canada.html

There's some Schaubek Canada information in these older threads...

https://goscf.com/t/17983

https://goscf.com/t/11238

https://goscf.com/t/15579

KirkS

Thanks for the initial thoughts ... I appreciate it.

Bujutsu: So you just use a Word program to create pages? How do you determine how large a space to leave for the stamps?

I paste and copy an image onto ordinary paper. I have done it long enough now so that I am close to the size I want and keep all images the same for any given set.

The main reason I do it this way is to keep me busy. I know it is time consuming. At least the end result is what I want.

Chimo

Bujutsu

bujutsu, can you scan a page of your "home made album"?
I use the hingeless Lighthouse albums... quite expensive I must say but very well made.

I have not used them personally (I use the Unity Canada Albums), but the Davo Canada albums looked to be very nice, if you can afford them. If I ever decide to upgrade, I will use them for sure.

Hi Koala

Here is one page from my album. Regarding the booklet pane, I will try to complete with used singles. I have a number of copies I want to examine as it is.

Chimo

Bujutsu

That looks really nice, though, it is still unclear to me how you did it. I am pretty much a novice with this stuff.

Hmmmm - long story - well, not really

I scan stamps on the internet - print it out on cheap paper and once I have the right size, I duplicate it for a set with stamps of the same size. This way I know that I have the right size for my album pages on better quality pages.

I have done it so often now that I usually get it in either the first or second try. For example, I will scan a stamp from the Quebec Tercentary issue and get it to the right size and repeated my actions for the rest of the set.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Thanks, Bujutsu ...
that process sounds very similar to what I did when I created my stamp exhibit years ago.

I think I will give it a try.

I recently purchased a set of 3 Schaubek's and love them except for one complaint - the mounts are not cut large enough. Too often I have had a stamp with a large margin and it does not fit in the stock mount. I would say this happens about 1 out of every 10 stamps, and is worse the earlier you go.

This is one reason I never fully converted to the modern Schaubek hingeless albums. The mounts are the horizontally split, load from the back type.

As far as I'm concerned, it's Lighthouse or KaBe. KaBe being the "Upgraded" version of Lighthosue albums.

UPDATE - Long since I first wrote here, but for those who might be interested, I wound up buying the Canada Dominion album, Vol I and I really like it a lot. The price was not too bad. The pages are good weight and it carries nice descriptions for all of the basic stamps. I think most albums have quirks and pieces missing, especially for specialty collectors, but this is nice for me as I basically just want face different stamps and care little about some of the dozens of varities for certain (especially early stamps), so a Scott 158 is just as good to me as a Scott 158iii - (just joking my Canadian friends) ... but I really do love the album. Now, if I could just find the right size mounts (I have some, but admit I am using a few larger sized for some stamps just because I am anxious to get these into this album.)

I have been using the hingeless illustrated Lindner Canadian album for years....German made. Has an illustrated page then a covering attached clear plastic type material page with pockets to slide your MNH stamps into. You can also purchase blank pages with a large variety of different sized pockets to mount your own configurations into. If you were so inclined you could mount your used stamps on the illustrated page then your MNH stamps into the over laying/covering pockets. I haven't compared prices with other manufacturers recently but this setup was a little pricey but the quality is excellent.