Just Finished A Major Stamp "Relocation"...

I'm finishing off Russia today or tomorrow, which is a hurdle as I've got most of the Russian stamps for the 1950s.

The end is in sight, but I confess that my enthusiasm has taken a hit a few times during the project. I keep telling myself, "if only I had bit the bullet and bought the newer Scotts parts 1-5 when I first realized I was seriously back into the hobby". But........ shoulda, coulda, woulda, etc.........

I finished my relocation to MYSTIC a year ago. USA to current. What hurt the most was the cost of Showguard mounts. I would have gone Hingeless but wanted black backed mounts for appearance purposes.

Jack Kelley

Well, I just finished album #7 (ended with Southern Rhodesia) of 8, moving just under 2,000 1950s era stamps from old to new pages......

As with the previous albums, I found some errors that I had made. Specifically, I had nine duplicate stamps hinged to two different spaces (one was the correct one). I also had five others hinged to the wrong space as well. I guess messing up 15 out of 5-6 thousand isn't horrible, but it surprised me. That said, I'm really glad I found the errors and corrected them.

I may take a bit of a break before I tackle the last album........... or maybe not.

Stay hydrated if you are licking a lot of hinges in a day. You would not think that licking hundreds and hundreds of hinges would make that much of a difference but it actually does. Monitoring fluids is a treat that comes with End Stage Renal Disease; I am allowed 25-30 ounces of fluid per day (counting fluid in any food). On days where I was licking hundreds of hinges, I was losing an extra 1/2 pound of fluid.

Hey, wait…. Perhaps we should promote stamp collecting as a weight loss plan?
Don

I remember weekends when I licked so many hinges I'd end up with a sore spot on my tongue.

I'm new to this and want to transfer all of the old I inherited to new albums because there are more stamps out of books than in, and most of them predate 1944 USA and international. I find the older books not too specific and I am finding myself overwhelmed with very simple questions that can be ascertained by owning newer volumes of albums. I am 43 years old, and all the clubs in my surrounding county's meet around 1 o'clock on week days and public libraries around the same time, I'm at work during those times and cannot attend, so I'm relying heavily on fellow members like you for insight. Thank you for your insightful post and to all that contributed in advance.

Kripp

There is an edit icon. Third icon after the date & time.

Delete icon last one all the way to the right.

Kripp,
As I've mentioned in this thread, I strongly recommend you get the best album (assuming you want an album vs. other options) you can possibly afford. Scotts (see Subway Stamp Co) has a newer set for WW that goes from 1840 to 1940 and comes in 4 parts. They are not cheap, but you can buy one part at a time over time.

There are other options, and there are threads on this forum that explore them all.

Redwoodrandy............ I'm confused, what is the meaning of your post?

Kripp successfully edited and deleted a very minor correction in the thread. Well done.

Good advice indeed to buy the best possible album. The problem, of course, is at least two-fold. When we start collecting, our resources are usually very limited so the "best" album we can get at the time is going to be fairly inadequate years later. I've gone through at least four stages of albums beginning with a beginner's album at ages 9, 10, 11, then though more and more comprehensive albums.

The other problem is that our collecting interests often change. For a long time I lost interest in world collecting and concentrated on specialization in the U.S. and a few other countries. By the time I got back to worldwide collecting (along with my specialized collections) I was much, much older and am now retired. At that point, I had to weigh the different world album options.

My choice was the latest edition of the Scott International because it was simply the most elegant looking of the world albums even if it was not cheap. Unfortunately, even at this stage I made the mistake of buying used copies of some volumes and trying to combine them with newer pages from other volumes. They don't combine very well. As noted earlier, Scott not only beefed up the weight the their paper (a very good thing), they also moved the holes inboard a bit so as not to tear so easily. I combine country pages from the different volumes so they are all mounted together, but this ends left the newer pages sticking out beyond the older pages by a noticeable amount. I had no idea. That's a very messy look.

If you keep pages in the same volumes they came in, you're fine. But if you rearrange pages so all Belgium is with all other Belgium (which I much prefer), try to use pages of the same vintage. Newer pages generally are higher quality despite losing some spaces for stamps and having more faded images, neither of which has bothered me much. Of course, like everyone, I wish the Scott Int'l pages were more comprehensive than they are. But being a bit limited was their original design, and it does save collectors money even if it can be a little frustrating. Adding blank pages for extra stamps without spaces is an easy solution.

Yes, buy the best and most comprehensive album you can buy, as mobilman44 says, as you don't want to do it all over again. Not too often, anyway!

On the other toic, you don't really have to lick hinges. You can wipe a finger on a sponge and then run the finger lightly over the hinge. Or get a stamp "wetting" device (a small squeeze bottle with a sponge on top or other device). Or just use a small wet sponge in a dish to swipe your hinges over very lightly. A little practice and you can do it quickly and not over-moisten, saving your tongue and your valuable bodily fluids, at the same time.

Thank you. I plan on keeping my Scott 1941 and transferring Scott simplified 1940 to it. I'm also going to keep and add to Scott international junior 1941.

Well, the project is DONE ! As evidenced by 10 empty Dennison & Fold-O-Hinge packages, I've relocated just over 10k stamps (from 1950-1959)from older to newer Scotts International pages.

Gotta say this was a big deal for me, and it took up a lot of time and effort over the last several months.

Yes, I found a few more stamps originally put in the wrong spaces, and found a few duplicates as well. And of course the stamps are now mounted on much better paper and frankly they look pretty good.

Now I can do "normal" stamp collecting activities, mainly going through the many envelopes of stamps that need a home in the albums, either on designated pages or quadrille pages at the end of each country.

Also, I may get back to the USA collection, which needs some work on the pre 1930 pages.

mobilman44,
Congratulations on finishing that task! Now you can sit back and enjoy your collection.

Chris

Yes, mobilman44, hearty congratulations. You did what I wish I had done way back when.

Thanks to all!
I have to say there were times in the process that I just wanted to put the albums back on the shelf and do something else. And, if I had to do it all over, I would have stopped my WW collecting at 1950 (instead of 1959) and my USA collecting at 1960 (instead of 2000). But, I didn't, so its now a moot point.