Scott International Album Binder Labels

Hi all,

I am curious how folks with large collections housed in many, many Scott International binders label their binders? I am thinking about the collections that have grown past the typical "Part 1A, Part 1B, etc." volumes. Same question to anyone who uses the Vintage Reproduction Brown albums housed in BigBlue binders, as those volumes don't match the standard "Part 1A, Part 1B, etc." labels. Anyone know of any company that can make custom labels that match the BigBlue binder labels?

Thanks!

You will find packets of Blue Binder labels out there that look like this. http://www.ebay.com/itm/SCOTT-Inter...301571115909 They only have 1A and 1B in them though and you can find these packets cheaper than that. I cut them up to make the parts that the packet didn't cover (part 23 etc)

I have my albums rearranged in alpha order - pages though 1965 across 9 x 3" binder. I tried two different methods:

1). I started with spring back labels: http://smile.amazon.com/Panter-Comp...inder+labels

2). However I settled on more traditional labels http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...page_o05_s00

Paul

Because I am still cataloguing and mounting about half my accumulation (10,000-15,000 stamps to go), I expect that the exact countries in a given binder will shift many times over the next years. For instance, right now my Steiner pages for French colonies are distributed across 6 Lighthouse Vario G binders. One binder has New Caledonia to Somali Coast (Djibouti). A year from now that might become Niger to Senegambia as I redistribute into 7 binders. I don't want to paste labels on to spines yet.

So, I type across the bottom of a page, in three columns, 14pt type,
Indo-China to Middle Congo
New Caledonia to Somali Coast
Syria to Wallis & Futuna

if they are formatted with two lines for each, the three sets of names will be less than 2.5 to 3 inches wide.

THen I print these three on a single cardstock page and cut the page vertically into 3 long strips, each with the country names at the bottom.

I insert the blank (top) of the strip inside the binder. At 2.5 or 3 inches, it fills the width of the spine, more or less. The ring mechanism holds this tongue flat against the inside of the spine when the binder is closed. I hook the part of the strip with the country names on it over the top edge of the spine, so that it hangs down an inch or two. Because the spine is curved, you have to "scrunch" the fold a bit to get it to "follow" the curve.

The edge of the slipcase comes to rest over the label fold, pushing the hanging tab down more or less flat against the top of the spine.

When I redistribute countries, all I have to do is reprint some card stock strips, cut and fold them over the spines. Yes, it looks temporary. Because it is. But the labels are legible.

One can be very precise about the exact measurements so that the labels perfectly and uniformly fit the width of the spine, one can use any kind of fancy script one wishes, create borders for the names or whatever. I just use simple typeface and approximate widths because I'd rather spend my time cataloguing and mounting my accumulation.

At some point, when I figure my basic cataloguing and mounting is done, I will acquire nice labels to mount directly on the spines. But that milestone is years away, right now.

I am bumping this. Does anyone have a newer answer to labelling one's Internationals with each volume's contents???

I have 15 volumes, all done alphabetically. I have just gotten done with adding a few binders, re-ordering the pages (it is amazing how many mis-placed pages there were!), adding hole reinforcers, and adding glassine interleaving. This was a months-long process, but it is done and I am thrilled with the results!!! Each volume begins and ends with a complete country, but not necessarily a complete 'letter', so I have printed labels that say "A thru Bel", for example. By labels, I mean printed out on plain white paper. I want them affixed on each spine. Ideally, I would like something like a 'label holder' with the same 'frame' as the international color scheme. I think that is a product that we ALL could use. Anyone aware of such a thing? As the collection grows, it would be nice to be able to remove the old label, print up a new one, and put THAT one back in the 'label holder'.

Before I use masking tape to tape them to each spine, I want to hear what others say.

I use a Brother Label Maker. Sometimes the labels stick to the album, sometimes they don't.

You mean, something like this, more or less? https://www.amazon.com/C-Line-Self-...&sr=8-5&th=1
My father housed his (now part of my) collection in ~3" green fabric binders (very 1960s/70s), he used something like this: https://www.ontimesupplies.com/pcis...12-pack.html

I got some of the spring-lock label-holders after reading about them on here many years ago. They'll only work with certain binders, though.

Classic paper - that first one is as close to my idea as I have seen so far. The Int'l binders are a lot wider, though, so the 'pocket' could be a lot wider than in the link. Also, since there is more room, I was thinking the pockets could be more horizontal - it would be nice if the writing faced up rather than left or right.

I did another search on Amazon (I guess I was using the wrong keywords) and found these: https://www.amazon.com/Prasacco-Adh...2C160&sr=1-5 I suppose I could mount them horizontally - they are only 3" long and my Int'ls are a mix of the 2 sizes which are both over 3". I think Int'ls are 3" and 5" thick and if these pockets are slightly long, I could trim the ends off of those that I need to. They are only a few $$$$, too!

Any other great ideas out there?

Maybe a variety pack? https://www.amazon.com/Adhesive-Org...s&sp_ctmp=no

It's a problem for me, too, that I haven't completely solved yet. I have a 40-volume set of the Scott International albums plus about 30 (so far) green Scott Specialty albums. I think I may be obsessed.

With the one-country Specialty albums, I either put on one of Scott's green country labels or I print out a label from my Brother P-Touch label maker. Lately, I've been unhappy with the green Scott country-name labels whose gold print on dark green background I find hard to read. So I've been removing them (use a hair dryer to soften the adhesive, and they pull right off) -- and I've been adding black on white P-Touch labels which -- so far over the last few months -- have not fallen off the spines of the albums. I guess we'll see.

In my 40-vol worldwide collection, I organized my Scott Internationals alphabetically since having every volume be all A-Z countries from a different era or different decade would have led to endless searching and a great deal of frustration. That leaves each volume with fewer countries -- but still often 4-8 per volume. What I've done so far is add a number sticker -- from 1-40 -- to the base of each album's spine to help me keep them in the correct order. I've uses "vinyl number stickers" which you can easily find under that name from Amazon. They come in different sizes in black or white. After a couple of years, these stickers have held on well.

I'm still arranging pages a little even after about 4 years, but what I could when I'm finally happy with the countries in each volume is add a list of the country names to each spine. I'd either use my P-Touch label maker to make the labels and just list them down the spine -- or print them on a separate larger label. That shouldn't be difficult. What may be difficult, though, is keeping them attached since the binder aren't smooth.

To see what works, I've experimented a little with some different glues -- Elmer's included -- to see if any glue is more "adhesive" and more likely to remain tacky for years than the others. No good results yet.

What I have found is that if I also put a clear tape-like "label protector" over a label, it stays there pretty well. Search Amazon under "Clear Label Protectors" for different versions of what I use. The numbers I added are circles, so I found some circular clear plastic "label protectors" a little larger than the number stickers -- and put them over the numbers. They've been on there just fine for some years now. So I imagine I could use similar clear stickers over a list of countries in each volume -- if I did that.

Or I could print out (or handwrite) the countries in each volume on a card and tape that to the binder. Maybe not the best-looking method, though.

With worldwide albums, another issue is that if you move a country to another volume, you have to change the lists of names. But I suppose removing a label and rewriting it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I also have a Plan B for my Internationals -- no country names at all on the binders, just numbers. I could make a master list of what's in every binder, put it in a clear page protector, and post it on the bookcase where the albums are. That way, I just look at the list to see which album I want. If I need to move some pages to another volume, I'll just redo the list and print it out again. This method saves me from listing countries on the albums. I'm starting to like Plan B more and more since it only requires number stickers on the albums. I think it also makes the binders look better than all those lists of names would.

Have fun!