Question On Stock Pages

So after number crunching and considering how I want to display and organize my stamps it seems the most logical would be stock pages in decent quality binders. The only stock pages I've dealt with are the cheaper cardboard and glassine strips variety from midrange ebay lots. So a few questions if anyone can help....

Are there any companies I shouldn't bother with?

The cheaper kind I've dealt with are open on the edges of the strips. How can I tell if the better quality pages are sealed at the end? None of the descriptions or packaging I've seen online mention it.

I think I'm leaning towards black Vario and/or Prinz. Would mixing the two be a problem for astetics? Do both look the same? I'd like my collection o flow visually as best as I can manage on my budget.

I'm sure there's the occasional slippage and sliding with stock pages just as inges and mounts have whoops moments. But is it a very big problem? I don't mind fixing wayward stamps but if a whole page at a time is going to vomit contents then yikes.

Finally (FINALLY!) I've noticed some pages are vinyl with strips, others are cardstock with strips. Is there much a difference between them or is it preference? Will one be better for preservation over the other? Reduce stamps moving around? Is there a difference in thickness or sturdyness? I'd prefer stiff pages that turn well versus ordinary paper.


I know it's lots to ask. But with my albums falling assist after only a few months I'm starting, and learning,all over again.

I would only use better-quality pages, and I would be inclined to pick one company and stick with them. For me, that choice was Vario. I do occasionally pick up other makers' pages, for general storage purposes.

Most of my pages are the standard Varios, but I do have some Vario Plus pages. The Plus pages are very nice. Very heavy and stiff. You pay a penalty in binder capacity and initial cost with the Plus pages, so they would not be practical for most worldwide collectors.

I store my binders vertically, and I'm generally careful with turning pages. I don't get much stamp movement on the pages, but I can't say it is none. I just grabbed a thin binder with about 20 pages (40 sides), and as I flipped through it, I saw fewer than ten stamps that could have used an adjustment. Only one was significantly shifted. If I bring some pages to the local philatelic society, and a number of different people are flipping through them, there is definitely some shifting by the end of the night. Knock on wood, nothing has yet to escape.

For me, the two biggest issues to work through are picking pocket counts and making annotations. I mostly limit myself to pre-1940, so there is quite a bit of uniformity in stamp sizes, but you'll scratch your head when you run across something like this one, from Gibraltar:






as he and his neighbors will dictate using a page with only a few pockets; which means that the other side of the page will have the same number of pockets, too. It can sort of gum up the works. I can't bring myself to turn stamps on their sides (except in the storage binders) and I don't let stamps stick up above the tops of the pockets.

Thanks Cjd.

I'm leaning heavy towards plain black Vario.I found a random vario page going through a box of odds and ends and I'm liking it quite a bit. I tested a handful of stamps on it and it looks like they're working out very well. I did skip that first row and I think it looks much better that way. I think I'm going with Vario.

mit_63 on ebay sells virtually all of the Vario options at very nice prices. Occasional sales offering even lower prices, too.

I use Hagner or Prinz stock sheets on black cardboard. They come in a range of leaf numbers per page, from 8 to 1. 6 leaf are suitable for most "normal" stamps but 4 leaf are excellent for larger definitives (like our friend from Gibraltar). Single-sided are better than double-sided in my opinion. Not sure what the equivalent brands are on the other side of the pond... Stamps are easy to shuffle around and annotated labels can be put in. Clearly not as aesthetic as a nicely written album page but if the collection is changing and moving about then I find this the neatest solution. They are relatively cheap as well (about £4.50 for a pack of 10 from my stamp man when I am able to visit him).

I use the Vario pages as well. Love how the stamps look with the black background and it fairly easy to create layouts for future expansion. I use Excel to create layout tables for each page with the catalog number in its own specific cell (which then can double as an inventory/want list just have to notate on the Excel printout which stamps I already have. Keep it in the binder with the stamps and all set to go). Since each strip per row is 195mm long it just becomes a question of division the number of stamps you can fit in a row depending on width (so a standard US definitive can usually fit 7 across a row (actually can fit 8 but may seem a little tight spacing to some, though not me), horiz commemoratives 4 across and vertical commemoratives 7 across). Up to the mid-1960s 5 or 6-row pages work well for most nations (strips are 39mm tall so cover most vertical commems, 5-row pages have strips 51mm tall so can mix-match 5 and 6 pages without too much of a jump in layout. 4-row pages have 63mm tall strips, and I generally switch to those starting in the 1970s-1980s as se-tenant blocks become fasionable for most nations.)

I'm a Vario fan.

I am interested in the annotation systems being used with Vario pages. What options have collectors come up with to record the stamp number and value perhaps? I would like a system that is easy and spontaneous but not to distracting from the stamps.