What's Best British Commonwealth Album & Catalog Approach?

dcaraz1949,

Things have gone quiet in this thread for a while. Hopefully all is going well with you and your task of working on British Commonwealth pages. I look forward to seeing some examples… if you're having trouble deciding what to show, I'd vote for a page with some GB seahorses.

Best Regards,

InforaPenny

InforaPenny: I didn't say this before, but will now. I like your UK page design, on the blank, quadrilled, Scott International page, that you posted a while back. I've done something similar in re-organizing my Newfoundland collection since I have some complete sets, for which the Scott Intl. Part I pages don't have spaces. Same for my Portuguese colonies.

Climber Steve,

It's nice to hear from a fellow user of the Scott International Part 1 album for WW collecting.

Thanks also for your comment on my added GB page. What I didn't mention previously is that I also use the backside of this same page for other stamps not included in the album… beginning with the embossed issues of 1847-54 at the top, and among my favorites, the 1934 seahorses at the bottom (shown separately below).

Best Regards,

InforaPenny

InfraPenny, Climber Steve,

I have a question for you two. When using blank quadrille pages for Scott Int, do you normally mount the complete set together on the blank pages or put the few stamps that have places in the album, and then split the set and put the rest of the set on the blank pages?

Happy New Year all!

Sorry, but I have been away from our cozy Forum lately. My involvement seems to go in cycles.

Fact that several comments show interest in quadrille pages I point out my flurry of recent buying.
For several months my focus has been on starting up British Commonwealth. I've been busy online including purchase of a number of older albums. I find it interesting that all of these purchased albums were manufactured in Great Britain and nearly all were sold by UK dealers. Most are old spring backs with quadrille pages. I admit that many of these non-printed quadrille pages illustrate the personal touch of each collector. But my preference remains a published album with "designed" pages laid out by a professional.

Most of the homemade albums tend to be a bit messy for my tastes, however, the older albums do boast some beautiful bookbinding including handsome end papers and embossed cloth bound covers. My favorite old purchased album is a red cloth bound "The NEW IDEAL ALBUM, Volume 1 British Empire" published by Stanley Gibbons back when they listed a telegrams contact (likely late 1930's). The album is hardbound and pages have stamps on both sides; pages are printed on rather thin paper stock. But despite its drawbacks, this album is wonderful to thumb through. The glory of the Empire's stamps alpha from Aitutaki to Zululand; 1840 through 1936.

It's great to have the colonies and member nations in alpha order! If the new version were published today by Gibbons in a ring binder format, it would have been my first choice.

Soon I will begin moving all of these British stamps into their new homes. Most will be in Scott Specialized albums. Hinged because vast majority of my purchases have already been hinged. For Great Britain itself I sprang for the Schaubek Hingeless album which is on order.

Soon I hope to complete and post here some nice pages for British America.

inforapenny,
Nice seahorses!

Chris2015, I haven't created any blank pages yet for my International, but I'm intrigued by your question of what to do when adding stamps to sets for which the album maker has provided some spaces. I don't think I could abide blank spaces in my album. So I would probably break sets. Another option would be to duplicate but use the opportunity to add something special: for example, a distinctive cancel or variety (e.g., US two cent Columbian "broken hat"), that kind of thing.

Chris: sorry for delay in answering your question from Jan. 23. I didn't return to this particular topic until just now. What I've taken to doing for my Portuguese colonies collection is to retire the Part 1 International pages; altho I leave them in the albums for reference. I use the front and back sides of the quadrilled pages and post the sets together. The classic issues of the colonies, through the late 1920s, have a lot of sets and I want to keep them together.

A problem is the recent breakdown/enhancement; in the Scott classic catalog; of the 1914-26 Ceres issues by perf and papers. There also are the wide variety of shades; plus overprint & plate flaws; some of which are covered in the Afinsa catalog. Some of my Ceres sets need a major re-organization to conform with the new Scott approach; and I'll find out which ones I'm missing.

Angola, Macau, Mozambique Ceres are already done. The Part 1 International has spaces for 32 Angola Ceres issues, 2 of which are blank. Scott formerly listed just 40 stamps in the set (old numbers #118-58). My count, with all the varieties, is 261 mint single stamps; 29 pairs; and one strip of three, equalling 322 separate mint stamps. Also have 9 used copies, 5 with obscure town cancels. Total is 331 unique copies of what was formerly just 40 stamps recognized by Scott. This is one reason why I find collecting of Portuguese colonies to be so extremely interesting.

One other point. I haven't purchased blank quadrilled pages in a few years as I have an ample stock. I prefer the G & K brand from Subway Stamps in Altoona, PA. Their international blank pages are thicker and more sturdy than those I bought from Scott. Something to bear in mind if one is mounting stamps on both sides of your pages.

Chris in no way I will leave an empty space in the Scott album. What I do is to make a special page where I add the full set on it , so that means that I will have duplicate on the new pages and in the Scott . I place the page in a plastic protector , make new holes and use it between Scott page as interleaved. Sometime I even put a full page of a minkus album cut to fit the protector.

Now that's for an interesting set. If the set don't interest me. I just put the one that don't fit I stock book for sale later. I want as much possible all varieties of stamps I like but the one that means nothing for me I don't see the purpose to collect them just to collect them

My mainobjective is to fill the Scott first.

For me, stamps are for looking at… and my collecting goal is to focus on stamps that I especially like, surrounded by a representative 1840-1940 collection to put them into context. I'm not obsessed with filling spaces, and for me the Scott International vol. 1 album is a really good compromise. For example, I have the 1893 Columbians and 1898 Trans-Missisippi through the 50 cent values, and really don't need (or want) spaces for the expensive dollar values. For the early classics that I especially like, I simply use black mounts to add extra spaces, e.g. changing the two spaces for the GB 1840-41 issues into four, the two spaces for Cape of Good Hope triangles into four, etc. I add extra pages for other early stamps, blocks and multiples whenever I like, and I'm also not shy about "re-purposing" spaces. For example, in the one regular album space for a GB seahorse I've put Scott #180 instead of #179. In Luxembourg, I've put #1 and #2 in the first two spaces and changed the date above to 1852. These two nicely engraved stamps denominated in two completely different currencies (centimes and silbergrochen) are really interesting, the ones they replaced, are frankly boring…

That said, I do appreciate having all the spaces provided for the George V silver jubilee stamps, another favorite of mine, and have filled those.

I'm not sure this helps, but I would suggest that whatever album or approach you select that you "make it yours"… and enjoy your collection.

Best Regards,

InforaPenny

It's now 40 years I hate and love the Scott Int. Many stamps I would like to put have no space, other I don't like have a lot of space. Space are tight , Binders poor quality. But I love the look of the albums.

To get back on the topic, the OP ask for the best catalogue, recently I purchase a lot of GB catalogue and I must say that I'm very please with their system.

So the OP collect US, he need a US Specialized for them
He Collect British Commonwealth, he need SG catalogue for it
Canada, Unitrade is a most, Lighthouse fallow SG system, airmails are group with the definitives and commemoratives, but even so, you need the unitrade for it.


If you take the "Great Britain Specialized Catalogues" they go way way more deep than the Scott US specialized, so much in deep that it's difficult to find something quick.

Hey, area66,

Yes, I use Scott Specialized for my US collection.

For British Commonwealth collection I use both Stanley Gibbons "Commonwealth & British Empire Stamps - 1840 - 1970", plus Scott worldwide set of 6 volumes.

All catalogues have been purchased used from library reference resale.

I only began collecting British Commonwealth last year, so there is a lot to learn. I thought I had an outstanding understanding of the colonies, protectorates, etc making up the British Empire. But I had no idea that "Nauru", "Bushire", "Abu Dhabi", and "Heligoland" would be included.

Pence, shillings, pounds takes getting used to. Folks in Europe or Commonwealth nations may not realize how even the British denominations are far more complex for Yanks than denominations for US stamps. I'm slowly taking it in, but I'm still not sure why "two pence" is printed as "2d" instead of "2p"? All fun

DCaraz:

From Wikipedia:

Prior to decimalisation, the pound was divided into 20 shillings and each shilling into 12 pence, making 240 pence to the pound. The symbol for the shilling was "s."—not from the first letter of the word, but from the Latin solidus. The symbol for the penny was "d.", from the French denier, from the Latin denarius (the solidus and denarius were Roman coins). A mixed sum of shillings and pence, such as 3 shillings and 6 pence, was written as "3/6" or "3s. 6d." and spoken as "three and six" (except for "1/1," "2/1" etc., which were spoken as "one and a penny," "two and a penny," etc.). 5 shillings was written as "5s." or, more commonly, "5/–". The stroke (/) indicating shillings is also known as a solidus and was originally an adaptation of the long s which represented that word.

When I lived in England, the exchange rate was happily $2.40 to the pound. Happily you say? Yes. Because there were 240 pennies to the pound so that meant that a penny was equal to a cent. Watch this:

Farthing = 1/4 pence (cent)
Haypenny = 1/2 pence
Penny = 1 cent
Tuppence = 2 cents
Thrupence = 3 cents
Sixpence = 6 cents
shilling = 12 cents
two shilling (2 Bob) = 24 cents
two and six (Half Crown) = 30 cents
Crown = 60 cents
ALL THE ABOVE WERE COINS AND SOME OF THEM WERE BIG AND HEAVY!
Ten Bob Note (1/2 Pound) = $1.20
One Pound (1 Quid) = $2.40

There were 20 Shillings to the Pound.

Jack Kelley

Now that we have that behind us, is there any new info about the Stanley Gibbons new Britian or GB Commonwealth Albums? Last I heard (about a year ago) is that something would be forthcoming "soon",

Jack Kelley