Moving A Ww Collection To New Scott Album Pages...........

Hi,
I've had a few previous posts talking of getting newer Scott Part 1 & 2 album pages for my worldwide collection. I'm in the process now of moving stamps from the 1947 part 1 to the newer part 1 (thick paper, 4 sections, etc.). I just finished France last evening, and moved about 2500 stamps so far. In the process, I've discovered and confirmed a few things.......

- In 5 cases, I had duplicate stamps in different spaces in the old album. This was mainly with Finland and France and occurred on almost filled pages.

- In about 10 cases, I had stamps applied to the incorrect space. Perhaps I did some of these on purpose, but certainly not all of them.

- All the stamps were attached with vintage Dennison hinges. This proves to be a major help when it is time to remove them.

- I found the Scotts Classic Catalogue invaluable in several instances where I wasn't really certain what type or color stamp belonged where.

- Doing the transfer process a few pages at a time, I somehow got to appreciate the stamps themselves. As tedious and routine as it may be at times, I find I'm giving the stamps a closer look, and appreciating them more.

I guess what I'm really saying here is that this huge project (moving about 16k stamps) has helped me to better understand what I had, and to more properly "get it right" on the new pages.

Its a shame I didn't start out with the newer pages, but this transfer process does have some positive aspects.

ENJOY,
Mobilman44

Sounds like a lot of fun - keep on enjoying it

Actually, I suspect that most collectors would find life rather dull if they got things right first time, and that half of the fun is endlessly moving stamps from one album to another.

Where I find very litle fun is is using hingeless albums, which are rather soulless, but efficient, receptacles. I recently acquired at auction a couple of empty hingeless Davo albums for modern Holland. I transferred my Dutch stamps to them. Took me about three hours, and I can say that the process was less intellectually and emotionally stimulating than doing the washing up. By contrast, in the same auction, I picked up six "as new" slipcased Lighthouse springback albums in the same auction, for the princely sum of £50. I've been putting African and Asian stamps into these, marking out the pages myself with pen/ink/ruler. The fun and interest is huge, because the personal involvement is so much greater. A few curses when I get the design wrong, of course!

Geoff

I've never moved a project of this size, but I find stamps on the wrong spot fairly often as I mount new stamps. Sometimes it's a simple misidentification of the stamp on my part, sometimes I just plain put the thing in a completely wrong spot by being absent-minded. Of course I use Steiner pages which have no illustrations and no catalog numbers, so it's a little easier to do on those if you're not careful.

Interesting observations, Sounds like a great project. I've moved hundreds, but not thousands. I agree with you that Dennison hinges really help!

Hi!
Well, the project is complete, with 9000 stamps moved from the 1947 Scotts Part 1 to the newer edition. Of course I did not count the stamps as I moved them, but did use up 9 plus unopened envelopes of the vintage Dennison hinges (1000 per).

My previous comments on the original post on this thread still hold true. I ended up with about 15 duplicates of the same stamp in two places, and perhaps another 15 or so that were put in the wrong spaces. Rookie mistakes of course, but not unusual I would guess.

One thing.... the Scotts Classic Specialized catalog. (I have the 2013 version) was a major help in this project, much more convenient than the 2012 set of 6 volumes of the Scotts Catalogs. When I first thought of buying the Classic Specialized catalog I thought it was a waste as I had the full set. But I bought it anyway and am very glad I did.

Anyway, with that done, I can look forward to going thru recently bought albums to see what I can use.........

Oh, thanks to Floortrader and others that helped me along the way. Your help is greatly appreciated!

Post pictures of your favorite pages :-)

mobilman44, congratulations. Please keep us posted on your progress.

And for other Volume One collectors, in addition to the Scott Classic catalog, don't forget jkjblue's checklist. He has done the hard work of identifying the stamps that belong in the album. Especially helpful for those pesky blank spaces.

Mobilman: congratulations on a good job. I'm envious. I also need to re-do many of my old Part 1 International pages. But the prospect of moving maybe three times the number of stamps you moved is daunting. I'm already using a lot of blank pages anyway. What I did with Newfoundland is to use quadrilled blank pages; draw lines across in pencil; and put the Scott numbers & year(s) for each section on the side. I'm actually using the G & K International blank pages from Subway Stamps since they are thicker.

I'll be doing that soon for Portugal. Mexico will be easier since I am using the pages from a Scott specialized album that I bought a few years ago. And, yes, please keep us posted on your continuing work.

Hi,
I won't soft pedal the project, for it was work. There were a couple of times when I came very close to just putting it "away". But there were some high points when I clarified mistakes I had made. And, when I found the new pages did not fully encompass what the old version had (types of stamps omitted, as well as a few countries), it was disheartening.

But having a much nicer merge to the 1940s is a big plus, and the thicker/better paper will last for some time (longer than me).

Of course my only real regret is not having done this when I decided to jump back into the worldwide arena..........