How Do You Sequence Scott's "Big Blue" Albums ?

Hi,
The Scott's International "Big Blue" albums are each "A-Z". In example, Part 1 is 1840-1940 A-Z, Part II is 1941-1949 A-Z, and Part III is 1950-1955.

This is how mine are currently set up, and frankly it's a bit cumbersome trying to look at the stamps of a single country and having to go to 3 books to do so.

Has anyone tried to combine the first 2 - 3 parts so as to keep each country together as a whole? Or is this not desirable due to the way pages are printed?

What do you do?

Thanks all,
Mobilman44

Welcome to the mess Scott created ,no they don't sequence well if you go and refile the pages A thru Z.I used two different sets of Vol I to get the right order.Over the years many people offered to print the pages correctly but the Lawyers at Scott wrote letters talking of lawsuits and copyrights. So now that Steiner came out with his album pages ,people are walking away from the Scott line of album pages.
My guess is that Scott will have to change and come out with a printable CD or try to buy out Steiner Albums Systems.

Thanks Floortrader!

When I got back into WW collecting, my only parameter was to go from 1840 thru 1949 or 1950. In looking at the HUGE (to me) Scott Part 1 and Part 2 albums, I "assumed" two things.
The first was that I would never have more than a few stamps that weren't in the albums, and second, the break from Part 1 to Part 2 would not bother me. Well, I was wrong on both assumptions.

I have to say that I like the Big Blues very much, and have coped with my problem be splitting the part 1 into two binders, and the part 2 as well. This allows me to add interleaves and extra pages.

I was a bit tentative in getting back (after 45 years away) into WW collecting, and had no idea how wrapped up in it I would become. Of course, that's a good thing!

Either way is fine.

I keep Part I (1840-1940) and Part II (1941-1949) and Part III (1949-1954) separate. Others combine. Whatever works best for you. They are your albums.

i combined 1840-1959 but as I purchased 1960-62, 1963-65,1966-69 I decided to just leave them intact !!

I have Parts I through V (1840-1965) in alphabetical sequence, in 7 jumbo binders and 5 regular binders. I've began to re-organize them so that it works better to find stuff. I now have Portugal and Colonies in one binder (altho may have to move Portugal out due to the binder really bulging--lots of blank quadrille pages in use).

Looking at a North American binder, which would include US, Canada & provinces, Mexico, St. Pierre. Then British Commonwealth binders. And everything else remaining in alphabetical sequence.

Part I, at least mine which was bought in the early 1980s, occasionally has different countries printed on both sides of a page. I can work around that, but it will be a bit of a hassle.

In my first collecting phase back in the 90s I had a set of the Big Browns and then full set of internationals up 1998. I had them all organized by country..but that was easier to do with the Big Browns since with maybe 1-2 exceptions there was only one country per page, whereas big blue often has 2-3 countries per page in Volume 1. It a lot easier I think to keep collection organized if country is all together.

I should mention that the '97 Big Blue edition does have countries and sections (air mail etc) beginning on their own page. This was done clearly to help integrate with later volumes.

Hi,
A bit of an update here............
I previously had sync'd up a Part 2 with an early Part 3 Big Blue. I then divided it into two 3 inch Part II binders.
Two days ago I started the initial fill, and made it to the "B"s before I gave up. It just didn't work for me, mainly as too many pages had duplicate positions (i.e. last page of a Part 1 compared to the first page of a Part 2).

Well, I gave up, and am now splitting the combined line up back into a Part 2, and a Part 3.

I keep my SI's in parts... Parts 1 to 4 are in two binders each, then starting with part 5 forward I use one binder and keep them separate. I'm up to Part 23. One good thing about collating if you do it is it can be easier to mount a bunch of stamps since one might aquire a county collection. I use Harris from about 1989 forward and I have found it best to collate in 5 year blocks.

I just acquired a collection thru 1973 plus the 1978 (part 14). The original owner decided to collate, which is fine as long as consistent. However, I'm considering wanting to break apart to parts again, but I don't know the original page sequences. Anyone know where I can find that out?

When I first started collecting in the Scott Internationals, the separation, as you described, bothered me for quite a long time. Finally, I just let it go (though sometimes I still get irritated). I love my SIs, and wish they were easier to collate. But it is what it is.

That's a toughie, So there is a gap from about were parts 10 through 13 should be.. At this point I wouldn't break them back up into parts. There are slight variations depending on what year the part was printed. The easiest to sort out would be part 1 that goes though 1940 but of course does not include all 1940!

So I already had a 1947 version of the International (effectively the Junior) with all pages to my knowledge starting with Abyssinia. That's fine since my U.S. collection is in the 1978 National plus supplements. I should be able to easily break out the 1840 to 1940 pages from the new collection. I plan to remove all stamps and then remount, perhaps in Big Browns. I also have new Big Blue pages from 1940 to 1949. I really don't want to buy pages to replace the next sequences.