Steiner Pages And Palo Pages

Page 30 for the Steiner pages for Mexico

There is another thread which discusses the advantages of the Palo pages for Mexico- and rightfully so, as the large pages are on heavy acid free paper, and are the only pages that can be ordered hingeless- at least realistically if price is a consideration.

So if one needs a hingeless album, that is definitely a very smart choice.

And, to boot, the Palo pages follow the Scott Catalogues for major numbers almost exactly, with additionally some minor numbers given a space at times. That means one really doesn't need a stamp image for the spaces, as long as one is following with the Scott catalogue.

But what if one doesn't require a hingeless album?

Then the Steiner pages are in play, because the Palo page layout and the Steiner layout... are identical!

Palo has a licence from Steiner.

Agreed... however, if you're planning to use mounts anyway (which by the picture above it appears you are), by the time you buy all the mounts in different sizes, you'll probably have at least half of the cost of the Palo pages in mount costs anyway.

Not to mention that I have no patience to measure, cut, and place, 1,000+ individual mounts.

Life's too short...

Good point.

The reality is I could not afford the upfront costs for all hingeless Palo albums for a WW 1840-1940 classical collection. It would be in the tens of thousands.

For a single country album- well, that might be a different story.

Yeah, worldwide would be... ummm.... not possible.

Just out of curiosity, do either of you know where Palo gets their stamp images? (I apologize if that info is on their website and I missed it.)

I don't.

Unfortunately, I have no idea. Does Palo add the images, or are the images from the original Steiner layouts that they have licensed? I still have all the PDFs and PageMaker files that I downloaded from when I had a subscription in 2003. There were no images on the Steiner layouts at the time, but I wasn't sure if they had been improved to include images in the interim.

I'm actually surprised at the completeness of the images in the Palo layouts. Really the only time an image is not there is when the space is for a variety of an adjacent type. See the 103 images I posted of the Mexico 1856-1940 pages in this thread:

https://goscf.com/t/33786

"I'm actually surprised at the completeness of the images in the Palo layouts. Really the only time an image is not there is when the space is for a variety of an adjacent type. See the 103 images I posted of the Mexico 1856-1940 pages in this thread."

That's exactly why I was asking. As I scrolled through your Mexico pages, I became more and more impressed...and curious.

How do the Hingless mounts on the Palo pages compare to Davo mounts? Are all the Palo Hingless mounts the same size (except for orientation)?

I purchased a Palo album for Israel and I have to tell you, while it is expensive, it sure is nice! And the mounts do save quite a lot of time.

I also use Steiner - currently mounting/remounting a used U.S. collection - using good old fashioned hinges.

The Steiner pages are a great bargain, but revenuecollector is right about the cost of mounts - plus the time/patience involved. Whew.

The problem with mounts is that too many collectors use them for stamps that have no business being in mounts .I have seen heavy hinged stamps in mounts and damaged stamps of less that fine condition. But when you see hundreds if not thousands of stamps that can't bring 5 cent each all in mounts on pages ,what are these collectors thinking .Do they really think any dealer or serious collector will pay extra for them.

Maybe they did it because... oh I don't know... they enjoyed the actual stamp collecting rather than thinking of it as an investment or resale?

If one were to use your logic, then realistically hingeless pages for stamps from 1960-1990 shouldn't exist, since as a general rule stamps from that era, mint or used, have little value (obviously certain countries, e.g., China are an exception to that rule, but you get my point).

If someone wants to view/display their collection in hingeless pages or in mounts, despite the stamps themselves being of nominal value, that is their prerogative.

Heck, I have several countries where I have far more sunk into the albums than the stamps sitting in them.

If someone thinks that hingeless pages makes their collection attractive, then so be it.

Many collectors merely want to display their stamps in as nice a fashion as possible.

My Israel collection is a prime example. It is a decent collection with as much used as unused/mint. It probably isn't worth a whole heck of a lot, and certainly one would be justified in questioning housing it in Palo Albums, but the thing is...it is a pretty darned good collection comprised of very attractive stamps.

And I simply want it housed in a nice album.

I told this story here back in 2009, so I guess I can repeat myself.



[apologies for quoting myself...emphasis added, this time]

The only reason I don't use hingeless albums is that I cannot limit myself to one, margin-free example for each particular stamp. Flaws, shades, postmarks, selvage, blocks, etc., are all too interesting to me.

But the presentation value of a hingeless album is fantastic. One of the most impressive collections I've looked at in person, outside of an exhibition hall, was a nearly-complete Finland in exceptional condition, in Davo albums. Just super. Some days I wish it was a style that I could adopt for myself.

Resale value just doesn't enter into it.

There are a couple reasons for mounting low-value stamps:

1. If you want to maintain a consistent look in your album, you probably want to mount everything the same way.
2. Poor quality copies can easily be upgraded with minimal effort once the mount is in place.

I can think of other reasons, but that should suffice.