Old-Stamps-In-Album Blues

Hope all is well with you folks.

I am from Pakistan and am trying to revive my stamp thing after 22 years. The norm here is that people generally tend to use Stock Books for their collections - Stamp Album here = Stamp Stockbook

I was always curious about Albums though and found out some very old ones from old booksellers and put a lot of stamps in them. Now that I am going back to them, their state is not very encouraging. I even have a vintage Stanley Gibbons Strand Album.

What is your recommendation? Should I take them out and organize them in a decent Lindner or Lighthouse Stockbook or should I let them remain in there?

Kamran

What is wrong with the stamps? Obviously, if they are affected by something to do with the album pages, then they should be taken off, but there's usually no harm in using paper album pages. They need to be proper album leaves - acid-free paper. It depends what sort of problems you are having.

Dear Ringo,

Thanks for the response - you are a super"Starr"

No major problem as such - just that those albums are falling apart slowly and had those one-page entry for every country and you cannot have a more organized arrangement. In an ideal world, I would want all my GB stamps in one place while here, they are scattered over three stock books and five pages of albums.

Well, I guess no album will last forever, not even a stock book. You can get albums which are loose-leaf, which I would always recommend. You can take out or insert pages, so you can have all your GB together and add more when you want.

I personally go for paper pages, because I think they allow you to display your collection better. I don't like the way stockbooks make you have all the stamps in rows, especially when a stamp is too large so it covers the one above it - but it's personal choice.

If you did put the whole lot in stockbooks, would you still arrange them by country? If so, what happens when you get some more stamps for a country which already has a full page? You will have to move all the stamps along one page to make room. I think inserting an extra leaf into a loose-leaf album is much easier.

Agreed. I have to look at economy though. In any case, I am going to keep these vintage albums with me.

If I were to buy a country album in soft format and then print it, what paper quality would you recommend? Please remember that till now, I have managed my stamps using some old albums and some old packets of hinges and some stock books - no modern album or mounts (cost issues).

If you're thinking of buying album pages to downlaod, don't do it before you've looked at what's available for nothing!

This thread has lots of useful links:

https://goscf.com/t/11268

I think most people opt for paper around 100gsm when printing off pages from the web.

Geoff

Like Ringo, I'm not a big fan of using stock books for anything but my stock.

One economical option you might want to look at are "Steiner pages" at Stamp Albums Web, http://www.stampalbums.com/ The cost is US $30.00 per year for a membership and you can download entire countries or just the pages you want. (Pdf format) There are some free samples to view on his website.

The pages are arranged in US Scott catalog format so if you use Stanley Gibbons or another catalog, you may not want this option. (It is possible to "tweak" the pages with a Pdf editor.)

There are a lot of threads here on paper type and weight. It really boils down to personal preference. There isn't a "standard" that I've found.

Dan

If the album they're currently in is falling apart, I'd remove them unless you have other reasons for wanting to leave them there. As others have said, it comes down to personal preference. If you like stockbooks, go ahead and put them in stockbooks. But there's no reason to leave them in an album that's falling apart unless there's a sentimental reason or something along those lines.

@danstamps54 Is the Steiner pages website safe to make transactions at?

Kamranwasti,

As far as I know, there have been no issues with Bill Steiner's website. His website states: "You can pay by VISA, Mastercard, PayPal, Check, Cash, or even unused U.S. postage stamps."

The order page is secure. I've been a subscriber for years with no problems. He's a legend among US collectors.

You can check him out here: http://www.stampalbums.com/questions.htm#q5

Dan

If you're concerned with security, you can't really go wrong with PayPal as the other party never sees your financial information such as credit card numbers, bank account numbers, etc.

Kamranwasti,

I've forgotten my manners.



Dan

You were fine, DanStamps54!

My doubts about Steiner arose probably because of his site design because it looks like one of those old Frontpage/NetObjects Fusion templates. I have written to him. Once he responds, I shall get something done.

Oh, his (Steiner's) site is old, that's for sure. But he's been offering album pages from that site since the early days of the web. 1998 or so.

No doubt he could modernize a few things. He recently mailed me a CD-ROM of all the pages and they were only 150mb all together. That's under a minute to download a zip file these days. But he mailed it to Canada nonetheless.

I'm not complaining though. It's a good reminder of how tech has changed in 15 years. I'm feeling old now. :)

Mark

I bought the Steiner CD-ROM a few years ago. It is 700MB. I collect only pre 1994 so it works for me.

I have been collecting Great Britain on and off for awhile (1840-1951). I have kept them on Hagners and other. As someone said it seems you are moving the stamps around a lot.

I came up with an idea awhile back to make my own hingeless album for the Great Britain collection. I purchased some CLEAR Scott mounts, downloaded the Steiner pages I needed on 65lb white paper, purchased a 3-ring binder from
Amos,(they were on sale for $12.00 so I bought 4, just to have.)

After sizing the stamp to the mount, I cut the top of the mount so it would come apart, mounted it carefully on the page and I have hingeless.

It really didn't take that long as there is only 18 pages to download from Victoria to KGVI. If I can stop being so lazy I will try to scan a page.

Let me try again. For some reason last image I tried to upload didn't
work.
This is a page of my homemade GB hingeless album.