Storing Large Used World Wide Collections

@shermae
thank you for your kind consideration. I have had your suggestion in the back of my mind ever since you raised it. It is probably a brilliant idea for preventing the suspected ink-migrating-issue.
With regards to additional thickness I am afraid it will not help, rather on the contrary. Reason for saying so is that I often insert duplicates behind some stamps, or one mint behind a postally used, or I put stamps in mounts (if value above 10$) and as you know I also add an 'id-tag' behind older stamps or varieties. In either case, this is causing extra thickness. I had the expectation that added thickness would make them sit better - however my experience is actually that the stamps that are inserted solo - only one layer of paper - sits better than for the other scenarios described above. Possibly because the 'static electricity clinging effect' is stronger when the pocket is lifted as little as possible?

btw - shermae - let us know the outcome if you do a trial with your idea!

I only print the pages that I have stamps for, and I have 15 Vario-G binders (for ~5000 stamps) and plan to add another two or three in the near future.

Yes, I only print the pages that I have stamps for. I don't see the need to have the others in the binder, as I can always print them as I need them

Yes, a drawback of using stock sheets (Vario and others) or even stock books for your stamps is that the stamps will shift. I think the manufacturers claim that static electricity holds the stamp -- along with the crease at the bottom of the plastic which is supposed to grip the bottom perforations. Except it doesn't really work like that. I have at least 40 binders filled with stamps mounted on Vario stock pages. These are my "holding" albums, waiting to have stamps mounted in albums. My life is not going to be long enough, I fear! All of these albums have the "stamp shifting problem". Vario pages only work "fairly" well to hold your stamps in place. Fortunately, the stamps generally don't fall out of the holders. Thank goodness.

I just purchased a beautiful Marini album (Italian brand not used in the U.S.) for San Marino. It had stamps covering about a ten year period, and they were all mounted in clear mounts. Sounds good? Unfortunately, the clear mounts were all (a) open on three sides, and (b) held to the page by only a very thin line of glue at the very bottom of the mount. The result was that 50%+ of the stamps had badly shifted in their mounts with some falling completely out, and dozens of the mounts had lost their glue and fallen off the page. Bad quality from Marini? Not sure.

Any modern stamp storage system can allow stamps to shift. Even stamp hinges can shift as the stamps is pushed to the side while the hinge bends somewhat. Many times, I've had to crease hinges down again to straighten out stamps on a page of hinged stamps. At least they don't often fall off their hinges. Usually. Stamps do fall out of mounts. And, again, on Vario pages it can get very frustrating to turn the page and see many of the stamps tilted awkwardly. The only way of mounting stamps I've found that holds stamps well is the split-back mount which grips the stamp both at the bottom and top perforations. Vario pages are a great system, but they will not keep stamps straight for long.

Which of course begs the question: is the product badly designed, or are the users doing something wrong.

A good example of this is turning the pages. For example with stock books the 3D stamps will start shifting immediately if the pages are turned on flat surface. But if I put the stockbook is placed into book holder stand (in somewhat upright position), the problem diminishes greatly.

With stock pages (be it Vario or whatever brand), I usually also gently pull the page towards myself when turning the page. This helps to keep the page 'flat' instead of 'warping', and thus prevents shifting.


Both are not perfect fixes, but ways to prevent and diminish the shifting. All in all I think it would be false to assume the stamps to stick in their places in all situations unless they are glued to page. That is just physics/laws-of-nature 101. The reason we folks chose stock books/pages first place is because we wanted to get rid of the attaching stamps to pages and get more 'freedom'. Random shifts are the price we got to pay...

-k-

Good discussion, all valid points! So at the end of the day any storage solution has its drawback. I agree split mounts are ideal for keeping the stamp locked and safe - however the drawback is that it takes time an patience to get the stamp in the mount - and even more if you want to take it out to replace with a better copy or study reverse etc. Not an option for me as a WW collector, it would simply slow the progress to much so it would be less time left actually studying the stamps.



Even tough I do not use hinges or mounts, I deal with them a lot on old collections that I buy. My experience is that stamps do not necessarily stay neither fixed or safe by hinges or 'normal' mounts. Particularly if hinging on both side of the album pages without interleaves, then I have seen lots of stamps gripping into other stamps on the facing page and causing both stamps to shift, fall out or in worst case damage to both. Stamps shifting in mounts is normal, even falling out of them. Not so in split backs - but then it is the time-factor.



Well said. I accept the small frustration caused by shifting and in return the Varios gives ease of use, freedom and flexibility. And the stamps stay perfectly safe as they do not fall out of the pockets alltogether. It is so easy to replace a stamp, re-arrange stamps or take out for study etc. When one has learned to flip the Vario pages without bending them the shifting problem seems insignificant.

@Drew


Ha ha, life is not long enough for any stamp collector - simply so much one still want to do

Bump!

I am back to the drawing board, again considering a change in strategy for storing my WW collection. I (and my brother barbu) have been transferring our collections to Varios for a while, and making ID tags for identification of varieties. However the progress is simply too slow, and the ID tags are contributing to the stamps shifting on the Vario pages.... So, I've actually considered a swop to Steiner, however I would struggle with the lack of space for varieties for the countries I care about and the pages are too widely laid out so I would simply need too many albums to store Steiner for the world.

It seems impossible to find a one-fits-all solution. So I am thinking to try a mixed solution, like many others have ended up with after years of trial. Will attempt to make self-made pages for the countries I care about (basically all colonies, EU, Canada, US, Aus and NZ), modified Steiner for the rest of the world, but will shift to Vario pages around WWI/WWII/QEII, depending on when the issues gets lets interesting for a classical-oriented collector.

For this to be satisfying, I need to make pages beyond Steiner, to be able to get the varieties organised as well. Here's the first of my DYI-experimental pages for Bahamas:







Question to those of you already printing your own pages
- what is the best way to keep them in a ring binder album (like Lighthouse Vario classic)?

Hang in there brother, hopefully you will settle on the right system for you one day. I've actually begun to switch back to Steiner myself (from Scott International) for some of my areas too.




Yes, I'm using fairly heavy paper (~80lb) and putting them in Vario-G binders.

Thanks for the encouragement Chris!
Cool to see you coming back to self printed pages, you were doing great with your modified pages!

I'm thinking to print on medium heavy paper, about 120 g/m2, believe that is about same as you.

How do you insert the pages in the Vario binder. Holepunch - or in sheet protectors? I am thinking the use of sheet protectors makes it quite troublesome if you want to replace just that one single stamp with a better version....much huzzle to take the page in and out of the protector. Much easier if the front of the album page is immediately available and not covered in plastic. And it looks better to. Anyone having good experience to share without using page protectors?
(btw - I am not planning to use hinges, mounts only)

Blaamand rather than insert the id tags under the stamp, why not make an insert page front & back to place between the vario pages of stamps?? This is what I do and have not had issues with stamps sliding. You don't have to put a lot of info on the "ID pages" just copy your tag info into Excel cells and print page. Then you get to keep the flexibility of the varios without the sliding causedby the tags being in the same pocket as the stamps.

I have not yet had the time to test putting an archival quality foil behind all the stamps in Vario pages. Don't know if it will keep stamps from moving around but hope so. Also allows me to have printed labels behind the stamps without large areas of laser toner coming into contact with the gum. Eventually.

Jon, as you well know no available solution is perfect, and thus grass will always look greener on the other side of the fence. It is bit like chasing the holy grail. Noble & fun (like any crusade), but in real world it rarely brings any true advances.

One of my guidelines for a long time has been 'you cannot change reality, but you can change how you react to it'. Slow progress? Considered it as an asset (i.e. you will likely check the stamps in more detail). Shifting stamps? That is another possibility to work & observe with stamps on those pages... And yes, I acknowledge this kind of philosophical preaching might not help, but hey, I've been using the same storage system for soon 30 years. I do have a love/hate relationship with stockbooks, but all in all I will be likely sticking with them till day I die.

-k-

Jon - as scb says, the perfect storage solution is a chimera, and the hunt for it keeps album manufacturers rich. For those outside the US, I do feel strongly that using Steiner or Scott leaves is going back down the philatelic evolutionary scale, and I speak as someone who has, over the years, picked up and used Scott country albums. The separation - by scores of pages - of stamps from the same set or period is, frankly, mad. I suspect that, in adopting this approach, Scott was really focused on US issues, where air-mail, express delivery etc stamps are usually discrete sets and charity stamps are unknown, and didn't fully consider the ramifications. Steiner provides a service, but perhaps one best enjoyed by those who have grown up with the Scott catalogue and album approach.

Funny that you ask this. I went around and around about using sheet protectors, just purchased a box of 100 and started using them. There are many benefits to using sheet protectors, such as the pages "appear" larger, the pages turn easier in the binder, your pages stay cleaner, etc. Also, I was initially using a somewhat thinner paper and really didn't like seeing the "indentations" on the back from the mounts (or also sometimes from the hinges, if I licked them to heavily ), so I liked the ability of putting two pages back-to-back in the protector.

However, after I got several pages in my album, I just didn't like the feel of all the plastic as I was flipping through the pages. It just felt "strange" compared to the feel of nice paper...can't really explain it better than that...a situation where my heart overruled by brain Also, as you say, it is a pain pulling the pages out and putting them back into the protectors ever time you want to add a stamp.

So, I recently got a little heavier paper (same that PostmasterGS uses) and 3-hole punched the pages and they go in a Vario-G binder. Here's what it looks like:

Thank you all for your kind response and understanding of the dilemma!

@DJCHMHOH - thank you for the suggestion . (plotting a set-up on paper to put between the Vario pages). Your concept is genius and it seems to be doing wonders for your albums. I have seriously considered your approach, however I feel it will fill up the albums too much for collecting WW - and one would still spend much time to prepare that set-up anyway. So I am thinking to simply make and actively use that set-up on true pages, and use Varios for the bulk of stamps after 1940 or so where I find a detailed set-up not that interesting. Regardless, the issue of shifting stamps and dust on Vario pages would remain a concern by the suggested method, even if I would be without the ID tags. Shifting of stamps and appearance in general is not that important to me for modern stamps versus the classics, so the Varios would be perfect for all the modern/semi-modern stuff.