Storing Large Used World Wide Collections

I inherited my fathers stamp accumilation (I thought it was huge until I started reading these posts). The collection is housed in stock books, divided into geographical groupings or countries and their colonies (Portugal and colonies, France and colonies etc)However I have noticed that in several of the albums, the glasine strips have become unstuck and the ensuing result is quite messy.
Personally I gave up collecting ww ages ago, but have concentrated my collecting interests to a few specific countries (mint) as well as British Commonwealth definitive series from 1938 to 1960 in used condition. I create my own pages based on SG 'Commonwealth and Empire stamps' using Microsoft office publisher and mount the stamps using clear mounts. I find this quite effective since I can add stamps in multiples, or additional shades which may not appear in the catalogue. Admittedly this is a rather small collection but it works for me, and I am sure it could be applied to a general ww collection.
I think at the end of the day, its all about personal satisfaction, time, cash flow, storage and a wife that pretends to understand ones obsession with tiny bits of coloured paper.
Below is an example.

Moose!
That's an awesome first post on the forum
Congrats with the fabulous pages you've made - you should get that satisfaction with that kind of stuff! 'A wife that pretends to understand ones obsession' - ha ha - you nailed it! I'm looking forward too see more beauty from your (and your fathers) collection.

I really like that Ascension set. I thought I had a "set" until I mounted them in an album with spaces for each stamp - I discovered I'd only got half a set! Very nicely designed stamps, I feel.

Ringo- I was hopelessly addicted to KGVI philately for almost 20 years. There were amazingly well-designed definitives throughout the reign- Ascension, Bermuda, Ceylon, KUT, Swaziland (all of Africa really)... too many to name.

Great photos of stamp storage ideas. Welcome to the forum Moose! Blaamand, great use of Stockbooks and very organized too.

Landoquakes - thanks! I think stockbooks are working well for storage as long as sufficient empty lines/pages have been set aside to accommodate both what you already have and also what you're missing.

I think if I were to seriously collect MNH stamps that I would use stockbooks and/or Vario pages. Those would be much more economical and time saving than mounts or hingeless albums. For the used stamps that make up the bulk of my collection, I'll keep right on hinging them.

Hi everyone! I like to use illustrated albums for stamps storage. And I use the software of LignUp Multi Collector for conducting the database. I'm from Ukraine!

Mario, welcome to the forum. And - we love pictures! :-)

I will add this here but if already posted elsewhere, my apologies and please advise.

I was looking at the international brown albums that Subway sells and the International Scott blues that Amos sells

By my count, the subway browns contain 5152 single side pages and the Scott Blues contain 1144 pages double sided for total of 2288 pages.

That makes the browns have almost 2 1/2 times as many pages as the blues up to 1940.

Are there that many stamps missing from the blues or have they added that many more varieties, colors in the browns making it more for the specialized collector?

You are comparing apples and oranges, or in this case, blues and browns.

Big Blue 1840-1940 was originally a "junior" album, eschewed watermark and perforation differences, and tends to exclude the more expensive stamps. It is a "representational" album, and has ~34,000+ spaces for ~80,000 stamps issued during this period.

The Browns (Now Vintage/Subway) are in six volumes 1840-1940, and include a space essentially for every major number in the Scott catalogue when the Browns were published. Yes, there will be a space for your "z" grill.

Each have their problems for the WW collector...

Big Blue- one will accumulate stamps that are not in the album..(not enough!)

The Browns- spaces, spaces, spaces- (too much!). (And there are a number of stamps that have been removed or been added to the catalogue since the Browns were published.)

Thanks very much.

What would the approximate stamp count be for the brown albums in total?

Thanks

By rereading your post, the browns would be around 80,000 stamps?

Whatever the major number count for the Scott catalogues circa 1919 - 1940+ when the Brown albums were put together. Yes, 80,000 is a nice round figure, perhaps several thousand less than that.

My solution to the Big Blue space issue is to use blank, quadrilled pages. With my Portuguese colonials, I've largely eliminated the Part I (1840-1940) printed pages in favor of blank pages where I can mount complete sets, including higher values. I've generally returned to the printed pages for Parts II through V, altho must still use blank pages for the post 1940 souvenir sheets.