What's Best British Commonwealth Album & Catalog Approach?

Inforapenny --- very nicely done page!
I love your mix of items with different shapes.
Your layout is visually rich and fun to view. Thanks for posting!

I have much to absorb regarding the multitude of early engraved Victorias. But I am stoked to dive into my Commonwealth collection.

Inforapenny - You have achieved your goal for your pages. Very tasty indeed. Your album page is a pure pleasure to look at, thanks for sharing. I behold my own pages after having seen your goodies.

dcaraz - I have enjoyed following your GB empire thread, and understand you have decided on Palo for UK. Question: Do the Palo offer spaces for the various plate numbers?

Hi Blaamand! I'm glad you've followed the GB Empire thread. I admit that I am very new to these album choices. That's why I posted my questions. I can't tell you what is actually included -- or excluded -- from Palo's album. But based on the number of Forum comments from more experienced collectors, I'm leaning toward the Palo Great Britain hingeless. However, I have yet to talk with Palo folks, and I have not seen the Palo GB pages in person.

Suggest you check in with GeoffHa who has been very helpful sharing his knowledge. I know Geoff owns many albums including Palo. I'll update this thread when I gather my GB album info.

Right now, I expect to receive my new Scott Specialty albums and I'll start mounting the Commonwealth issues I've amassed. My first goal will be to prepare a few good-looking pages with decent completion. I am curious if Palo might offer a holiday sale price so I'll give them a ring very soon.

I'm afraid I don't have any Palo albums. I looked at them for French Colonies, but they're very expensive, take up a lot of space and are ringbound, which I don't especially like. The SG New Imperial has spaces for stamps where the plate number appears on the stamp itself, but not for those you have to plate yourself. I can't imagine that Palo is widely used here for GB - the obvious choices would be the SG Windsor or the GB albums by Lighthouse, Schaubek or Lindner.

Geoff and dcaraz - thanks for answering.
In the end I presume different collectors have specific and different preferences for pre-printed albums, so it's da... difficult for the houses to make albums that would please everybody. I think I will continue to make my own custom pages to fit my needs, to avoid being restricted/controlled by any editors preferences

Dcaraz - I really hope you will be happy with your Scott speciality's. Brand new empty albums and a load of Commonwealth stamps - sounds like you will have an awesome winter
Please share some examples as you progress...

dcaraz1949 & Blaamand,

Thanks for your kind words about the posted page from my collection.

I've spent a lot of time over the years trying to sort out the best collecting approach for me. The problem for me is that I especially like early classics before about 1870, and these "earlies" are the ones I'm willing to spend more money on. My later stamps are mostly inexpensive ones, selected for appearance, with mint or lightly cancelled preferred where possible.

Starting out, I considered limiting my collection to 19th century world-wide stamps, using an old 1898 Scott International Album. With mounts, this avoided the issue of non-archival paper. However, since this had spaces for every known stamp there were a lot of very expensive gaps, plus spaces for high priced stamps that held little appeal for me. For example, I really like the early British line-engraved stamps by Perkins Bacon, but find the later British de La Rue issues to be rather ugly, especially in affordable used condition with characteristic heavy cancellations and fugitive inks. On the other hand, I find unused British Commonweath stamps to be very colorful and attractive, and remember being able to pick out a nice selection of mint Victorian stamps from one of the Stanley Gibbons red bound British Empire albums at a stamp shop in Bristol, England in the early 1980s.

At the same time, I really like early the classics of Austria, France, Brazil, Spain and the US among others, and so confining my collecting to the British Commonwealth was just too restricting. Since I'm interested in history, extending this into the mid-20th century also seemed like a good idea.

In the late 1980s, I settled on a nice thick-page Scott International volume 1 designed for a representative collection of 1840-1940 stamps, housed in heavy matching slip cases. This has worked very well for me since the most expensive issues have been "weeded out", and the layout is generous enough that there is enough room to "squeeze in" extra early classics at the beginning of most countries, and I can add pages where appropriate. Also, since my first "more serious" stamp album when I was a kid was a used 1935 Scott International Junior album, it brings back many pleasant memories.

I find that I really like the display richness of double-sided album pages, and by substituting the new transparent interleaving for earlier glassines, it looks great. After all, what good are stamps if you don't actually want to look at them?

I think that album selection an especially important consideration in stamp collecting, and so I commend dcaraz1949 for expending some real effort to get this right.

As for me, I've found that my approach to collecting is sometimes a bit like that of Mr. Toad in Wind in the Willows. Just when I'm convinced that my carnary yellow gypsy wagon with the red wheels is perfect for me, I spot a shiny new motor car… In other words, I'm prone to form side-collections of items that strongly catch my fancy, like blocks of Latvian map and banknote stamps. These I house separately on Lighthouse style pages in stock books with slip cases.

My overall concept is to develop a relatively compact world wide stamp collection that I can enjoy into old age. By design, it's strictly a hobby collection and I never expect to fill all the spaces and complete it.

Best Regards,

InforaPenny

P.S. I'm looking forward to seeing examples of some nice British Commonwealth album pages.

InforaPenny, well said and spot on.

I started collecting British Commonwealth issues a few years ago, limiting myself to the definitive issues of George VI and Elizabeth II up to 1960 (used only). I try and collect all the shade and perforation varieties as listed in Gibbons which admittedly is quite wishful thinking. Faced with the same dilemma as how to house the collection, I decided to make my own pages using mounts.I concentrate on one or two issues at a time, work on completing as much as possible temporarily storing the stamps in a stock book before setting up the pages the way I like using Microsoft Publisher, in this way I can cater for all issues, multiples, blocks, booklet frames and covers and to add any additional information without being restricted by pre-printed pages, nor do I have to worry about changing the layout if I want to add something new into the collection, its just a matter of redesign and printing. As for binders, I can get a decent four ring binder for three Euro at my local stationary shop with spine and front cover slips in which I can add my titles. Simple and economical.

Moose

That works well, I think. Most of the GVI and QEII are attractive and affordable, and collecting definitives misses out the rather tedious omnibus issues. I'm in the (slow) process of transferring my QEII from New Age springbacks to quadrille, and I've noticed how average many of my stamps are - more investment needed!

Geoff

inforapenny -- you nicely summed up what I have learned this year

In 2015 I have blathered on and on re: stamp album choices. These discussions have been in multiple threads on our Forum.
Earlier this year, dozens of members shared their experiences and preferences with US albums, hingeless pages, binders and mounts.

Now, so many have shared their insights regarding albums for British Commonwealth and WW collecting.

I find the most fascinating thing in these discussions to be how varied and diverse we are in finding our very personal collecting preferences.

Prior to researching the available published albums, I never would have guessed such a large percentage of serious collectors choose to design, layout, fabricate, or print their own custom albums.

This is odd since my first career was as a graphic designer and advertising art director. I'm very visual, and of course it makes total sense to customize the "house" for the collector's selected goodies.

However, right now I am impatient (one of my bad traits) and in a hurry to jump start my collecting. I respect those of you who have created your pages as a labor of love. You have invested much more time in doing so. Someday I may very well consider custom designing an album. But for now I'm relying on Scott Publishing to provide the pages -- so I can spend my time covering those pages as best I can




Geoff, sorry, I must have gotten you mixed up with a Palo lover.
They are pretty albums, but as you say, they are dearly costly.

Merry Christmas!


Santa was very good to me this year!
Received a big carton from Nola Stamps in New Orleans stuffed with my new Scott Specialty
pages and binders to hold my new British Commonwealth collection.

To their credit, the folks at Amos Publishing have improved the Scott Specialty pages and binders over the years.

I was only familiar with the older Specialty albums having purchased vintage 1960 albums for British America and Australia. These older albums are twin peg designs, a bit smaller in size (less deep), and have no Scott numbers.

The newer Scott Specialty albums are 3-ring locking mechanism, with metal hinges to reduce wear, and the pages include Scott catalog numbers.

Seasons Greeting to all SCF members, and happy collecting in 2016!

I collect British colonial and use the SG New Imperial album. Although it does not have all the features of some of the other albums mentioned in this thread, I find it to be very comprehensive.

I collect 1840-1952 British Commonwealth (as well as 1840-1940 WW), and, as I am a U.S. based collector, I put the stamps into the Scott ordered Steiner pages. This is a quite inexpensive solution if one doesn't mind the Scott arrangement.

With OpenOffice Draw someone can make the pages like they want, just open a Steiner's one, and mod it.

I'll post some British Commonwealth pages with mounted stamps once I move some stamps
from my purchased stock onto the new Scott pages.