Scott, Minkus, Steiner, Harris Album Comparisons

Most of my Steiner pages are housed in Vario G's, with some in smaller Vario F's. I think the Vario G's are the best value in a binder myself. They indeed look very classy (a shelf full of them looks outright impressive in my opinion), they are sturdy and durable and they come with a slipcase. And you can get them for as little as about $25 apiece (with shipping) if you buy them 5 at a time.

Chris

Lighthouse must make 3-ring for the US market, as the European norm is 2 or 4-ring. Good luck with the stickers. I bought some of the Lighthouse sheets of gold-coloured country names, but there are, of course, many missing, for which I've printed my rather less classy black and white versions in the same font.

Geoff

The Lighthouse gold country titles just didn't work for me, even on Lighthouse binders. They do not adhere well. Lighthouse binders have a grained finish, don't know how they expect them to stick.

I find they stick to Vario G's reasonably well (though not perfect) but not so much to the Vario F's. The grained finish you speak of is prominent on the Vario F's, but the G's actually have a fairly smooth finish. My bigger gripe is that they just plain don't have titles at all for some countries or areas. I'm thinking about getting a label writer that can print gold lettering on a clear tape to label some of my stockbooks.

I collect WW so I am thinking about labeling my Vario G binders with just "Stamps 1", Stamps 2, etc."

Similar to the Royal Collection

I haven't found too many problems with the Lighthouse titles, aside from their being in German. I use them on a range of binders - Lighthouse, Schaubek, Lindner etc.

Chris - careful, you'll be massacring pheasant next!

Chris:

I was thinking of taking a similar approach, albeit using the Steiner pages. Good to see someone with more sense than I have is walking the path that I was looking at

Lighthouse label don't stay more than few days on Lighthouse 2 post rotary bar binders for the reason Stamps 1962 write in his post. I even try with solvaset a product design to make the decals soft and take the shape under and it don't work.

I also have some problems with labels sticking to Vario F binders. I printed coats-of-arms on silver sticker paper for each country volume and after a few days they would start to pop off at the corners. I've tried putting clear packing tape over the decals and to a point it helps but some still pop off a bit from the binder spine. Gonna look at perhaps a more durable clear tape like for outdoor use to see if that holds them down since the decals look great on the binder spines.

I did something similar with my vintage brown reproductions which I had 3 hole punched and put in Vario G binders.

Labeled each binder using a small dymo label printer from #1 to the last one. Went to excel and ran #1 to end, put in years covered, put starting counrry and ending country and printed the list.

Put it in a hard acetate sleve and it stands with my albums. All I have on the albums is a number.

I will do the same with my Scott internationals once I figure out if I want to separate by country or leave them in sections.

[quoteI did something similar with my vintage brown reproductions which I had 3 hole punched and put in Vario G binders.
][/quote]

Dutchman,
I actually got the idea from you! I wasn't on keen on 3-hole punching the pages, but after I tried it, they actually seemed more secure because the holes could be punched in further from the edge (compared to the holes for the 2-post binders). Now, while the Vario G binders are about half the price of the Scott binders, problem is that they hold about half the number of pages and thus would require about twice the number of binders to hold all the pages.

However, I'm planning on only putting in pages that I have stamps for and/or maybe only certain countries that I'm focusing on at a time. And, I do like the fact that the pages lay flat when working on them.

Still waiting to receive all the other volumes so I guess time will tell how I will like this setup.

Chris

Chris

I only paid $700 for the pages, 11 International binders, and the 3 hole punching. I use the international binders for my Scott International Blue pages

I had the Vario G binders and I put ~200 pages per binder, which once you start adding stamps and mounts, is lots.

When you buy the binders, they do not come with page lifters while Scott does and Scott lifters work very well as I use them for Specialty Pages.

I am still on the fence about the Scott binders with the metal hinges as I think they look funny. The binder and slip case are $62.00 plus shipping and my Vario G's cost me under $20 per set.

I also find the Vario G albums much better for labels as they have a smooth finish.


So far, I am very happy

Not too bad, huh?

It looks....royal.

I just printed the Steiner Netherlands pages through 2010.
My Cost:
Paper: Georgia Pacific 110 lb. white card stock $16.50
Ink: 1 cartridge $18.00
Total Cost: $34.50

If I would have purchased the same Scott pages from Amos publishing it would have cost over $350.00 plus shipping. That's 10 times more than my homemade pages.

No more high priced albums for me; Steiner albums are the way I'm going.