Scott & Minkus International Albums - Comparison

Hi,

While I'm pretty familiar with the Scott's International Albums (Parts 1-V), I have little insight into the comparable Minkus albums issued during the '50s & '60s. My point is, I'm looking for your objective views, and not looking to start a "versus" thread.

I recently won several Minkus album pages, and frankly got lots of nicely hinged stamps in the deal. In going thru the Minkus pages and finding the proper spaces in the Scotts albums, I noticed a couple of differences. In example:

- The Minkus pages have more spaces w/pics
- The Minkus pages mingle airmail with regular issues
- The Minkus pages are "fuller", whereas the Scott's have a more generous presentation space.

Obviously I'm invested heavily into the Scott's albums and have no regrets. But I'm wondering if the Minkus offerings should have been considered more so than I did before I bought.

Anyway, are my observations valid? Are there other differences that I missed? And, the real question...... Back in the '50s, would a person of means have opted for the Scotts or the Minkus albums?

Thanks all!

mobilman44- Yes, those are indeed some of the cogent differences.

The Global Supreme Minkus (usually) offers more spaces for a country compared to the Scott Internationals, especially for the earlier (1840-1940) issues. Less of a difference,if any, for the later years.

Minkus has the semipostals, airmails, postage dues all presented with the regular issues of the same era while Scott separates.

Minkus generally has more stamp spaces per page.




Back in the 50s, I was ten years old, and my means testing was whether I could afford a Schwinn Bike or not.

(And no, I never got the red and chrome beauty, as I was $10 shy from the money saved with the paper route,and bought an off-brand instead.)

Todays impression...

The Minkus Country Specialty Album, although nice enough, appear "cheaper" than the equivalent Scott Country Specialty album.

It all depends on what the collector was trying to collect . Minkus would allow spaces for perforation and watermarks . It was easier to fill the Scotts Internationals because the pre-1940 sections didn't include the high values spaces of a set .

Most collectors in the U.S. used the Harris line of albums . My first album cost 25 cents from Woolworths ,that worked fine if your purchases were ,10 cents for 100 stamps with approvals which came from the back of a BOYS LIFE magazine and a occasional HONOR-BUILT packet from Woolworths . The Internationals were for serious adult collectors and they cost like $15.00 a piece .

Along the lines of what floortrader said, I couldn't afford Scott albums as a kid so my early collections were Minkus and Harris. For what it's worth, the most complete collection of the world ever attempted in modern times (1840-2010) was largly/entirely? housed in Minkus country/regional albums. But the largest collections scanned for the web (Antonius Ra and Dr. Cheng Chang) seem to be mostly housed in Scott Specialty albums. My impression from looking on ebay and auction listings is large worldwide collections these days (i.e., hundreds of thousands of stamps) are Scott rather than Minkus.

As a fairly new WW collector(about two years) I prefer the Minkus, I am a Scott National snob when it comes to my 40 year US collection. With WW I like the added spaces, the non-specialized pages and the inclusion of the airmail, semi-postals etc....

I started with a Minkus Global Master then tried a Scott Grand Award and then looked at a Scott International and ended up back with the Minkus to 1960.I like the monster Minkus albums.

I remember as a kid yearning for one of those wonderful Scott or Minkus Global albums, but I ended up with a Traveler Album. I also remember how proud I was when I broke the 1000 stamp barrier!

I recently purchased a large 25 Volume, 125,000+ Minkus Global Supreme collection. I usually work with Scott Collections but I find the Minkus to be pretty nice. I especially like it that in the Minkus album it is much easier to separate countries. Scott loves to put the end of one country front to back with the beginning of the next country. It drives me nuts.

Nice! Have fun with that!

"Scott puts one country front to back " that also drove me nuts also . What many of us did was to get another set of pages and separate this flaw . I always wondered why Scott didn't sell a supplement of pages to correct this error of planning many years ago .They could of sold a second or even a third supplement to reduce the vast number of one stamp per page items they have .The third being to add a lot of cheap stamps that they missed with the original issued album sets . All these faults resulted in many collectors going to the computer print your own pages .

Congrats on buying a 125,000 stamp collection . Sounds like you got years of fun ahead of you , enjoy .

I wish I'd bought the collection for myself, but it actually represents about 3 months of ebay listings.

I loved collecting stamps but after I decided to make ebay my retirement income supplement I realized I couldn't do both, I didn't have the self discipline.

I know this is old news, but just to clarify, the version of the International Volume One currently being sold, the 4 part version, does not have more than one country to a page and all countries now begin on the front of a page. And, at least in the Supreme Global I own, there are some countries on more than one page. But as others have said, the Minkus albums are much better in not intermixing countries than earlier versions of the Blue.

1840to1940 please don't get me wrong I much prefer dealing with Scott Blue collections, I am just a little frustrated because I'm working with a 1930s International Junior and the front & back problem is brutal.

I think/guess that if you had an identical stamp collection mounted in a Blue International and a Minkus Supreme the Scott collection would sell for 20-25% more.

Hi again,
I've spent the last few days sorting/purging the stamps from the Minkus pages and migrating them to Scotts. I've come to the conclusion that I can honestly make an argument for either album. I imagine that "back in the day", a prospective album buyer (with money) had a difficult time deciding which way to go. Kind of like the "ford vs. chevy" of my youth........

Anyway, one thing that is giving me fits is that the Minkus puts (for the most part) different types of stamps in the same pot - mixing regular with airmail with "whatever"............

Still, I am gleaning a lot of needed stamps from the collection, and disappointed that the Scotts does not have ready spaces for some of those that have a home with Minkus.

I agree completely that strong cases can be made for either the Supreme Global or the Scott International. I'm just glad that the information is now "out there" to help collectors make informed decisions. When I first became interested in worldwide albums in 2008, practically none of this information was available online.

Just a note from a worldwide collector who filled 15 or 20 different sets of Internationals. After you remove those stamps you want for your main collection . Use the set of albums for duplicates and after they fill up over decent time,then consign the duplicate to a stamp auction house and you will realize the best possible price for your duplicates .