What Are My International Album Choices For 1-2 Volumes?

Big Blue may be for you!

As the first Part 1840-1940 began life as a "Junior" album, the spaces generally ignore watermark, perforations etc. And most spaces either have an illustration or written description. (There are occasionally a few blank spaces for adding additional stamp(s) to an issue.)

And a couple of binders ought to hold the contents.

Yet it is still a huge challenge- some 35,000 spaces for WW classic era stamps.

Barhata your right ,my math is questionable,was doing that posting while sitting on the floor with a IPAD between work outs at a gym .But for my collection ,I really like the Steiner pages only wish I had them ten years earlier.

Collecting worldwide...i don't know if I had it to do over again..but it seemed like everyone was collecting worldwide back then...there were a heck of a lot fewer stamps and stamp issuing locations ! The popular album was the Scott International..but when I picked up a couple of Minkus global supreme albums from remainder collections and saw how superior they were it was too late to switch !

About 15 years ago I picked up two Minkus Global Supreme albums that covered the world from day 1 to about 1962 at a flea market table...they were loaded with stamps and I will probably never stop moving them (including U.S.) into my other albums..the guy wanted 80 dollars for the pair and I did not even try to get him down..just pulled out 4 20's and walked away with them..i was younger and stronger back then !! I learned later in life that you can pay a lot for stamps or you can pay a little..depends on the situation !!

I would start with an existing Scott International with a thousand or so cheap stamps in it. Shouldn't cost more than $100. You can "move up" to Steiner pages later. I find I need the photos, I'm not much of a catalog guy.

Gee folks, "great minds think alike" !

I'm currently watching a number of auctions of Scott/Minkus albums (with stamps). My train of thought is saying that whatever I spend on a used volume at auction could be reasonably recovered later on if I decide I do not want to "pursue the world". On the other hand, if it works out, I have the option of picking up succeeding volumes, or getting the new pages and starting fresh.

From what I can tell, the Steiner pages do not have "pictures", but do have the Scott (?) cataloge numbers for each stamp. That tells me that I would need access to the catalogs, and go thru a look-up process. I'm just not that far along that I want to do that.

I will say this, your input has given me a wealth of information, and I sincerely appreciate it.

The Steiner has a description, but no illustration or Scott catalogue numbers. But they generally follow the Scott catalogue closely- and yes they work best with a Scott open.

I pencil in the spaces all the Scott catalogue numbers for a country after I print the pages- actually quite easy to do.

I wish you were here Mobilman...in fact I wish a lot of the forum would stop by and just take what they need(except my personal collection) I am not hard to deal with...ask the car dealers !!

mobilman if you go with the scott international make CERTAIN the binder is strong...belieive me taking them off and putting them down takes a toll and duck tape does not work too well !!

To add to what philb said, the 3 inch binders seem to hold up better than the 4 inch ones (which, of course, ignoring my own advise is what I use, held together with generous amounts of book binding tape).

Hi,
Well, I did win an auction for a Scott junior, which is for the stamps as the album is beat up. I've got my eye on a few auctions for Big Blue 1 and 2, and hopefully I can latch on to a decent set. You all have given me an outstanding education on the subject, probably saving me lots of bucks and time and effort.

I plan on pulling the US pages out of the albums, as I already have the Scott Nationals. That should free up space in the books for blank pages. Speaking of which, are they available?

Thanks,
Mobilman44

Vis-a-vis blank pages, they are available as unruled and quadrilled. There are also stock pages punched to fit the Internationals. In addition to Scott/Amos products, Subway Stamp Shop sells its own G&K line of International-related products.