Are You A Former Worldwide Collector Who Now Specializes?

Tom,

Yes, Jim is correct, Scott numbers are not included on the Steiner pages. Only certain of the Scott albums will have Scott numbers. None of the others do.

I added the Scott numbers, the additional text, and the image of the overprint to my pages.

I penciled in the Scott numbers on my Steiner pages. But, as has been said, the pages follow Scott so closely (same exact wording in the descriptions, etc) I'm half-surprised that Scott never pursued Steiner for copyright infringement (from my non-lawyerly perspective).

To return on the topic, you don't need to be a former worldwide collector to get specialised; you can do both. I get more and more interested in specialising, I put more money in specialised books last few months than in stamps. But in no way I will sell my Scott albums, I just focus less on it, but I like time to time to return and work on it. Since few months I place all the special stamps that don't fit in Vario pages insert in plastic protector that I punch 2 news holes to fit in the Scott binders. I do less and less customs special pages as they come obsolete nearly as soon as you print them, always something to add or change and every time it cost mounts. Vario save me a lot in mounts. Also I cut a lot of minkus pages to place them in plastic protector and insert them with the pages of the same country in the Scott, so all the stamps of the same country are place together. Because for many country I have 2 set of pages.

I absolutely agree with area66. I still maintain my general WW collection in Scott International, but have now started a "specialized" collection of classic world airmail stamps. For these, I modify my Steiner pages (as they go beyond only what's in Scott), place complete pages in page protectors, and put in Vario G binders.

This way, you can have the best of both worlds

This has been a splendidly interesting, and intelligently articulated, thread--thanks to all of you who have contributed. My collecting gap is considerably longer than what seems to be the canonical number of 30 years for most of you; it's more like 50 years for me, and my return to collecting began with my retirement seven years ago. I had the Big Blue from my youthful collecting years, as well as what were then called Parts II and III of the Scott International, extending Big Blue's 1840-1940 to 1948 (Part II) and 1951 (Part III). Even so many years later I readily recalled the pleasure of obtaining stamps from around the world and learning something about the countries they represented, and in fact I credit my stamp collection with sparking my interest in cultural history, which ultimately became my career's work. Collecting world-wide from those 111 years was an easy decision to make my renewed focus, but I wanted also to collect more recent stamps. So I decided to specialize that part of my collection in Western European stamps, from countries that I had enjoyed visiting (and even living and working in, when I was twice a guest professor abroad). But even those European countries seemed after about 2000 to be afflicted by the same hyper-inflation of new issues that much of the rest of the world was, and so I made the introduction of the euro as a common currency in 2002 as my collection's terminus. But even so, I made a few exceptions for countries I had special affection for and I collect their 21st century issues as well. Emerson said a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. If he was right then all here who have been eloquent about how their collecting has transcended the generalist/specialist binary are large-minded types!

The thing about WW collecting is that it leads to other specialties, or at least it can. My own circuitous route has been starting out as WW collector, then to a focus on the German area (and a couple dozen other countries to a far lesser degree), then back to collecting WW, and finally now I think I found another area I want to explore more in depth: the French area. The German area will probably always be my first specialty, but the French sphere simply has too many interesting classic stamps and too many gorgeous modern (relatively speaking) issues to pass up. I have zero doubt that I'll find other areas I want to explore more deeply as well.

jraeburn - I like your story Emerson seems to me a wise man

I agree with area66 and Chris2015 - fully possible to be WW collector and do some specializing at the same time. I recently made a new setup for Japan on Vario sheets. What Scotts Big Blue covers on its first page took me 14 Grande pages. Still I guess I'm only semi-specializing as I did not include space for all the various types of paper on the Koban issues.

TheArtfulHinger - Good to see you getting into the French! I absolutely agree with you that WW collecting leads to other specialities. As an example my own interest for classic France leaded me into a specialized collection for different PC and GC losange postmarks, Maritime postmarks and 'Used abroad' / forerunner postmarks for the colonies.

It's a world out there to collect. And we're free to cherrypick any area for some level of specialisation

I don't actually consider myself a ww collector,and being based in Barcelona (Catalonia, Western Europe) Big Blue Album and the likes are absolutely unknown here. I collect Scandinavia and Holland (using two old Dutch albums), Baltic countries up to 1940 and Bohmen-Mahren and Slovakia with huge Y&T albums, Germany up to 1960 with an Spanish Philos album.
For my Estonia 1990/91 postal history and Barcelona and Catalonia postmark collections I make my own pages by using Publisher.

For the remaining (Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, post 1950 Sweden, British Empire...) I use the Steiner pages. Which I find very good, despite the nuissance (for me!) of the separation of semi-postal stamps, unusual in Europe.