Floortrader Inspired Me...

Floortrader posted a photo of his collection several months ago. It inspired me to better organize my collection and upgrade my binders. I have been moving to Lighthouse binders for most of my collection. I still have a few more collections to migrate, but the results look great already.

Nice, but you need to upgrade the typewriter and telephone while you are at it.

Bizarre. How do you keep things from sliding about and falling out?

Mine looks pretty darn similar to the picture as I use Lighthouse binders as well. I need to upgrade my shelves, however. I've been using some regular el-cheapo discount store shelves, which work fine for books, but they're not holding up real well under the weight of all those pages and binders.

Wow - even the preview had the photo upright - but then again, if computers always worked, I wouldn't have a full time job ;-)

I also have a "Brownie" Camera up on the top next to the typewriter and telephone - great items I picked up for pennies at antique stores well away from the NYC metro area where I live.

Very tidy! How did you move the Scott International Pages to the Lighthouse Binders? They do look great. Good use of space too with those bookshelves.

WOW... Very impressive. I cleaned house all weekend -- One more day of attention and I'll reclaim the dining room table, but my home office is a wreck.

Very attractive stamp corner, PK.

I've been looking into the Lighthouse system of binders for long and short term storage.
Mind if I ask a few questions; looking for advice?

In comparison with your Scott's International binders it looks like most of your Lighthouse binders are "Grande" with the "D-ring" mechanism. I like the fact that they house super large pages that will allow you to display and store an entire 8 1/2x 11 exhibit page in 1s two-sided pages. But turning pages or swapping out a single page is cumbersome with the D-ring device. I'm torn.

What made you decide to go with the Grande binders? Storage capacity alone?

For flexibility of arrangement I am leaning toward the Vario-F pages with the three ring mechanism, since the pages are easy to turn. I'm okay with page lifters if you use a protective cover page at the front. Not sure about the capacity or any other drawbacks.

Could someone enlighten me?

I settled on the Vario-G binders. They are available at a great discount from the same seller on both Amazon and ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/29124656364...RK:MEBIDX:IT or http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...page_o03_s00 - I have no connection to the seller, but others have spoken highly about them in the past. The 3" binders seem to be the right size for my needs. I had quite a few 1 1/2 binders previously and thought they didn't hold enough pages.

The Vario-G binders have the"square" ring mechanism. It's not as easy to use as the "D" rings, but once I got accustomed to them, I haven't had any problems navigating or adding pages. I also tried a Vario-F and Grande binder, but prefer the 3" size of the Vario-G binders. 8 1/2 x 11" pages fit inside page protectors, plus they fit oversize pages. Some of the largest pages I had to trim down to size.

I collapsed Mystic, Steiner, Minkus, Scott, and WhiteAce pages into the binders.

I kept my Scott International in their original binders. I used the 3" (Smaller) Scott binders so they look good with the rest of the Lighthouse binders.

About the only pages that caused me problems were the G&K Mint Sheet pages. Luckily I don't have many of them, but they are a bit too deep for these binders. I have one binder that hangs out of it's dust case by roughly 1/4".

Labels are a combination of Mystic and Lighthouse labels that can be purchased in sheets. I'm going to try clear Avery labels to see how they look with the binders.

Looks like a pretty nice well organized corner for your stamps. Saw the Brownie, a very common camera, but was surprised you got it for pennies. We usually get $5.00 in the thrift store if it works and the leather isn't too worn off.

I use both Vario G and F binders for different parts of my collection. The Vario-G is more like a "U" ring rather than "D" or "O", and the bulk of my collection is housed in G's. While page turning in Vario-G's is not as easy as an "O" ring, it's actually still pretty easy. You just need to turn from the center of the page rather than the edges, which probably will actually save wear on the pages over the long term, anyway. For whatever reason, I actually find the pages quite a bit easier to turn than on "D" ring standard office binders.

I use the smaller Vario F binders for smaller (and more expensive) parts of my collection that I don't want to combine in the same binder as other areas. F binders use the "O" rings and page turning is a breeze, whether you choose to turn from the edges or the middle of the page, etc. They probably hold a third as many pages as Vario-G's and they're almost the same price, but they have their purpose.

Vario-G's from the seller pk-short linked to above are probably the best value in a high-quality, large capacity (and very attractive) binder there is on the market today. When you buy 5 at a time, they're about $25 each with shipping, including a slipcase. Given that decent, regular office binders will push $10 without a slipcase, the Varios pretty much became a no-brainer for me.

I should have posted Floortrader's collection that inspired me to organize https://goscf.com/t/40901&whichpage=4#362562

Thanks for the kind words, in previous postings I mention that my collection is kept three ways . They are the International and country specialized binders and I keep better duplicates and complete sets in long red boxes full of 102 cards . My lose stuff I keep on stock sheets in country binder and a set of binders with A-Z for smaller countries. I never posted those "duplicate" binders ,so here are some pictures of my stock.