Are Cheap Album Manufacturers Days Numbered?

Based on the above I think a modern stamp collection today would consist of BOTH pre-printed and self designed. Pre-printed for the general collection and self made for the specialized.

This is the way that I've gone to accomodate covers, blocks, and the stamps
Tom

Howzabout: Chronological by Date of Acquisition

As a recent returnee, with eclectic interests past & present, I've decided to organize my collection ... chronologically, by date of acquisition, indexed on a spreadsheet.

Recently acquired items will be issued a sequence number, and relevant details recorded.

Higher-value items might be flagged, for the convenience of my heirs.

Each item will have a binder number, and a page/sheet number.

Yes, if it is something that I think there will be more of (say, postally-used stamps of a particular country), I might think ahead a bit and set aside a whole sheet just for them, updating the spreadsheet as I go.

Yes, that means that, from time to time, I might go thru the collection (THE FUN PART) and pull-out items to build a new page or, better, pull out whole pages to build a new binder, in both cases updating the spreadsheet as I go.

Yes, this is mostly a strategy of avoidance:

- I am avoiding 'commitment' to 'complete' anything, with its attendant anxieties;

- I am avoiding flipping thru page after page of empty spaces (a bit of a corollary);

- I am avoiding spending money on whole albums (or sets of pages) for subjects in which I might, some day, lose interest.

More importantly, I will be able to:

- Browse my own collection with an element of serendipity & discovery;

- Find some particular item if I really ever need to find that particular item;

- Intermix pages of stamps, plate blocks, coils, postcards, covers, ephermera ... even, G-d Forbid, coins & medals;

- Intermix hinged postally-used and 'mounted' Mint NH OG, or not;

- Easily insert printed scans of things I will never own, or remove them, at will;

- Add whole pages from such collections as I might buy, or such downloaded pages as I might print.

Okay, the new guy at SCF is a bit of a nut, but I hated being "Twelve Years A Slave To Scott".

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Welcome IkeyPikey, I like your style

To me there is a definite increase in stamp page quality compared with pages pre 1970's. Lots of very aged looking pages that have passed on fungus of all types to the stamps on them. This is also becomes a storage issue as well.

But the modern collectors 1980's on, seem to be using vario type pages or a paper of superior quality than in the past with the lots I have been buying and the stamps have been in great shape and so have the pages that the stamps are on.

I do not care how spot on, terrific, flash, the best pages that money can buy that you can have, it all comes down to storage.

The nasty made in China stock books that abounded in the 60's & 70's stored correctly have stamps in them that are in great shape to this currant day.

Stamp book after stamp book, I have seen the top 2 rows of stamps destroyed by dust and whatever else that falls into the top of the stamp books. The other stamps on the same page do not have a problem at all.

Insects...........!

For the last 25 years of stamp issues (1987-present) I use Harris World Supplements. They have been declining in quality over time. In the mid 90's to early 2000's They would still be rather thick... 1 to 2 inches, for the last few years they might not even be 3/4 inch thick, and you have to wait years for some countries to update like Norway. That said, they are still around $18 a supplement compared to $199 for a Scott International. Recent Scott International pages still look quite good, but for that kind of money I would rather buy stamps!

For my worldwide, I prefer to design my own pages than buy supplements. The few times I bought Harris Worldwide supplements,I was less than satisfired with the coverage.

I collect up to about 1962 in five volumes of a Minkus Supreme Global, which works well if you mostly use hinges and don't mind adding a page here and there for the items that aren't shown. Although Steiner is great, it also takes time to produce, especially if you want to print out on larger pages; and printing out even those pages for which I have stamps would take up vastly more space.

More generally, in my view the problem is that the old link between album publishing and stamp selling has been broken for some time. H.E. Harris, Jacques Minkus, Stanley Gibbons and others knew that the best way for them to sell stamps was to provide albums for people to display them in. Scott went out of the retail stamp business long before being bought by Amos, which is perhaps one reason why they've haven't been very innovative in album production.

In terms of worldwide, general albums, the obvious difficulty is that there are simply far too many stamps for any kind of selection to fit in a size that most casual collectors are going to find reasonable...ie a couple of volumes or so. Scott issued a large one-volume Grand Award Album in the 1960s, which I had as a teenager, and Minkus last revised the Supreme Global in 1966 as a three volume set; but since then the number of new issues has overwhelmed any such project. But that would still leave room (say) for Scott to offer a freshly-edited one- or two-volume album to accompany their 1840-1940 classic catalogue, or for Gibbons to do the same kind of thing for collectors of the British empire up to 1952, or even 1970. If Bill Steiner can do it, why can't they, and at a price people can afford?

In my view, the lack of reasonably priced, well-edited printed albums tends to make collecting a matter for the committed specialist. There's a good reason why most 'starter kits' include an album as well as hinges, tongs, etc. But its no help if after that you are faced with expensive reprints of albums from the 1950s or the prospect of printing out a roomful of pages.

But the starter kits are what get kids started. The Mystic starter kit for $14.95 is the way to go if you're ten years old. I'll keep you all posted on my experiences with the 4th grade class.
Tom

that's great! and I think Mystic does a good job with this and many other things. But the issue I was pointing to was what do the kids do next if they want to keep collecting the world, beyond their starter album. When most of the readers of this site were teenagers, they could aspire to move from starter kits to one or two volume albums of various kinds. Or in later years, if they want to get back into some aspect of world collecting later, they ought to be able to do so without breaking the bank (and the shelves). And that's where I think the major publishers could help out more than they are.

I have been using Scott's "The National Postage Stamp Album" and Specialty Series" since 1952. I have 14 "Nationals" and 26 "Specialty" albums. Only problem Scott/Amos Press stop making the National Albums years ago and one has to go to a place like ebay to find one. If they are in any reasonable condition they sell quick and often more than present day new "Specialty" albums. Another problem,They continue to change how the supplements are arranges. Years ago, if a stamp was part of a series, at some point they would print a page to have all the series on one page. I miss that. Also they have changed the fonts on their labels that no longer match those older labels. But with those problems set aside, I enjoy and look forward to their high quality annual (most of the time) supplements.

"... at some point they would print a page to have all the series on one page."

I think that the rise of the Mint OG NH Tyranny did this in.

Re-hinging cost next to nothing.

Replacing a dozen self-adhesive mounts imposed a palpable cost.

Then again, maybe the only cost that mattered to the publisher was formatting & printing yet one more page.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I suppose the best advanced children's album would be the Harris Traveler. It is loose leaf so one could transfer to the Statesman if they would like to and there are still supplements. I just posted Harris world supplements from 1966 to 1970 on ebay and it is interesting to see how Harris promoted them. By far the best deal and I would contend is even better than printing Steiner pages is buying used albums.

Steiner designs this pages on Adobe Pagemaker. Pagemaker's support for PDFs is very rudimentary. There is no way he could pull that off.

You have to realize that cartridges can be refilled with a syringe, and you can buy a gallon of ink for $30. You can fill HUNDREDS of cartridges with that gallon. I buy a complete set of 7 colors for my Epson Artisan 835 off Amazon for around $11.

Ink is such a scam...

If you import your Steiner pages into Adobe Photoshop or illustrator you can add whatever catalogue numbers you want before printing them out. No need for an access database. And you can choose whatever typeface you want from your computer files.

Also, I recall reading that printer ink costs more per litre than champagne.
Terry