Vintage Reproduction Albums

Is anyone using these for your collection:

http://www.subwaystamp.com/BIG-BROW...ducts/54/2/0

Have not seen them discussed much on here. Interested in your take on quality, coverage, etc. My first reaction is that they'd take a lot of shelf space. I am currently using part one of the regular International, am a bit frustrated as so many stamps are not provided for.

Great choice - they are the well known classic Scott "Brown" albums, but on better paper. Two members of our local stamp club use the Vintage flavor for their WW classical era collection.

You can learn more about them at Bob Skinner's " Filling Spaces" blog, or at my blog- do a search under "Brown".

Good Luck!

A better search word is "browns".

The largest criticism with the "Browns" , and why I don't use them for my own WW classical era collection ( I use Steiner) , is that the stamp descriptions are frozen in time, and so one has to interpret which space to use while looking at the modern Scott catalogue. But that aside, they are still a great choice as they do not take up nearly the shelf space of the Steiner.

One more thought.

Big Blue ( the Scott International Part I 1840-1940) is still a great choice if one can get over the fact that not all stamps are included.

It tends to not include spaces for the real high catalogue value stamps, and poses a real challenge for the collector finding stamps across some 400 countries, and filling 35,000 spaces.

And a checklist is being published for all the choices for spaces in Big Blue.

And it is compact compared to the other more comprehensive choices.

I really do like the Vintage Reproduction pages although I'm still using the abridged Blues. I did recently pickup the first half of the 19th Century Vintage pages housed in a Green Scott Specialty album. It is a quality product with luxuriously thick paper printed on one side only, of course. As jkjblue mentions, the coverage is the same as with the original Scott Brown Internationals which means they are "frozen" to the catalog that was current at the time.

If Subway's estimate for the 19th century pages is any indication (2 jumbo International binders), they may be overestimating a little on how many binders one would need. But these are still going to take up some shelf space regardless. I've wondered if I were to use the Vintage Reproduction pages whether I would go with an A-Z arrangement or attempt a geographical one to make the set easier to use (e.g., British America, France and Colonies, etc.)?

I've been using the abridged blues for a few years. It is frustrating to have to find no spaces at all for a lot of stamps then decide where to put them. Also with the two post format it is difficult to add covers. I am retired and trying to consolidate some of my collection- I have several country collections in Scott Specialty albums and could remount their pre 1940 material from those then sell off the newer stuff on ebay. This is all dependent on Subway still having the three ring format in stock and apparently they do.

Update- I took the plunge. I bought the first three sections of this album and will get the others soon. So far I am working on part one- the pre-1900 section. Among the first stamps I mounted were my German states- wanting to get them out of a hingeless album so I could sell it on ebay. I am amazed at how neat these old stamps look on these pages. I am looking forward to having the full set, consolidating material from scattered albums and remounting in these.

Stamps1962, please post images from your new album. I am very interested in seeing how it presents your collection.

I agree with Classical Stamps. Please post some pictures. Always informative to see different albums and collections. Good luck and have fun, Stamps1962!

I have tried several times to upload images on these. I cannot get it to work. My scanner apparently assigns a specific name to picture files, one that apparently contains invalid characters for the program on here. I have tried changing the names of the files, no dice. It keeps reading them with the original invalid title. If anyone has suggestions, I'd be grateful.

Stamps1962, check the size of your image file. It must be UNDER 100K. If it's over, you can use the "Free Image Optimizer" to reduce the size.

The message you get if you try to upload a file that's too big can be confusing (at least it was to me) and make you think you have an invalid character in your file name.

I tried using the optimizer and it still kicks it back. Will keep jiggling with this awhile.

Are your image files in .gif or .jpg format?

Stamps1962:

I was having problems with the "Free Image Optimizer" the first time I tried to upload a scan. I downloaded the IrfanView software and that worked perfectly for me.

OK, I used the optimizer to reduce the size of the picture and downloaded it- then what? I do not see any link back to my post. I cannot seem to access the downloaded modified image to attach. Where would I look for it??

Not familiar with 'InfranView'. Is that a separate program I need to install?

There may be better ones, but here's my method. I save the downloaded image to my desktop. Anyplace that's easily findable on your computer is fine. Then you may need to start a new post if you can't find the one you were originally using. In the new post, click on the "choose file" link and browse to the downloaded image you saved on your desktop, then "open" it and click "upload image." I just did that with this image.