Questions For Scott International Album Users.........

Hi,
It won't be long until my Big Blues - Parts 1, 2, and 3 - outgrow their binders. Between the stamps, glassine dividers, and soon to come additional pages (for non listed stamps), I'll have hit the max capacity - especially of the part 1.

There are a number of alternatives to address the problem, like getting a second # 1 binder, or combining all the albums by country and doing "A to ?" in one, "? to ?" in another, and so on. Or ???

Those of you that have used the Scott Internationals for any length of time have likely hit this same dilemma - and my question is, "what did you do"? And of course the follow up, "how did it work out"?

Thanks all........

I purchased 8 International Volumes back in the 1970s and immediately reorganized them by country. Since they were older revision pages this did not work very well since they often started a new country on the back side of the previous country. Sometime in the 1980s they started printing the pages so that collectors could organize by country without this pain.

By the 1980s buying annual supplements became painful but over the years I have purchased many other International albums. Some of these contributed pages/binders and the set now numbers 13 volumes. I add blank pages to mount newer stamps.

Since this is my 'fun' collection I am not too concerned about resale value but I have added (in pencil) catalog values for my family in case they have to deal with it. I maintain other albums for the things that I specialize in. Overall I think that the International albums and 'by country' configuration is has been a very satisfactory solution for my purposes.
don

Organizing "by country" is quite popular, judging by the country collections that one sees housed in International pages. But there is definitely not seamless overlap with the pages trying to combine Part I + Part II + Part III and so forth- just the opposite!

So, unless one has recent published pages where Scott has organized the pages so one can do this, I recommend against it.
It just appears downright messy.

Rather, keep Part I together, and split out to additional binders.

Same with Part II, III if necessary.

My opinion. of course.

Isn't it just the earlier Volume One's that don't play nice with Volume Two on? That is, one could integrate Volumes Two and Three without a problem?

Yes, I checked my Part II and Part III, and it should not be a problem integrating the two.

Part I (1840-1940) is the problem.

Love it. The first collectors I found who had completed a Volume One characterized this album as being "a bit of a mess."

I'll disagree politely with Jkjblue ;-) . When I bought Parts I to V of the international pages in the early 1980s, I placed them in alphabetical order as best as possible, realizing the issue of Part 1 that Jkjblue references. As I've bought collections on international pages & in blue binders, I've worked on the alphabetizing & different-countries-on-reverse-pages problems to some extent by blanking off some back sides and adding either quadrilled blank pages or regular pages in good condition. (If this doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll try to explain it better.) It's generally worked for me so far.

But I am now making some changes. Given that one of my major specialties is Portuguese Colonies, I've already moved almost all my colonies to a separate jumbo binder. I'm not done yet and the jumbo is already bulging. I will move Portugal itself back into the main series. My next project, after the Christmas holidays, will be to create a North American binder. I know some will have other opinions as to what goes into a North American binder. But for me, it will include Bermuda, Canada & provinces, Greenland, Mexico, St. P & M, UN-New York, and US (including Canal Zone, Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, but not DWI).

Later next year, I'm looking at a possible combo of British Europe/Africa/Oceania; and maybe an Asia only combo. But these may be too much work and maybe better to keep all the remaining countries in an alphabetical order.

That certainly is an option, as long as one is aware that (older edition) Part I's do not play well with the other Parts.

But it does work.

For myself, I prefer to keep the Parts as they were issued.

I went the way CLIMER STEVE did and added pages from a second set of Internationals to keep those pages in order and X out the side not being used .

When my Scott Internationals are getting bulky I split them up in two. One is A-I then the other is J-Z I had to do this for the first 3 volumes. Putting them in country order is tempting but you will be in trouble when you get to part XXXIII etc.

Floortrader: now that is one impressive stamp cabinet !! Thanks for sharing.

landoquakes: I won't get to Part XXXIII myself ;-)