Harris Statesman Albums

Hello,
What are the official titles of these two Harris Statesman world albums with the blue and gold cover?
1. This album has pictures and blank rectangles and spaces for adding stamps. Example: 1st picture is 1/2 cent Benjamin Franklin from the 1938 presidential series, followed by blank rectangles for adding other presidents from the series.
2. This album has pictures and descriptions of the stamp below. Example: all pictures of the 1938 presidential series would be featured here with descriptions below the stamp (1/2 cent Benjamin Franklin, 1 cent George Washington, etc.).
I am interested in the album from #1. Does this album come in one or two volumes? Is this a two or three ring binder? Does anyone know any reliable websites for purchasing this album with a copyright date of 2010 or newer?
I own a green Senior Statesman album that goes up to 1975. I'm interested in getting some stamp image pages for inserting stamps from 1975-2010. Thanks!

I don't see any images in your post.

I was a Statesman owner and collector as a kid in the 1970's and expanded my statesman out to 1975. When I got back into collecting as an adult I looked into expanding that but decided against it for two reasons:

1) No matter how much you update the Statesman, there will always be stamps that just do not have designated places. You will need a strategy for placing overflow and uncovered stamps. So if committed to a worldwide collection, other alternatives such as Steiner pages or more expensive Scott albums (used) is a better alternative in my opinion. But wait for other opinions. You'll still run into the "not enough spaces" problem with Scott but not anywhere to the degree with Statesman.

2) I decided that specializing my collecting in a few countries rather than worldwide would make things more interesting for me. Your views may vary and collecting worldwide is still an urge I have. If I were to collect worldwide I would either use Steiner or Scott International.

3) 2 reasons...no three reasons... No one expects the Spanish Inquisition... I'm not sure that expanding Statesman from 1975 to current is even possible or any less expensive than going the Scott International route.

Another alternative is to go with stockbooks or stocksheets. The plus is that you will have space for every stamp, even blocks, multiples, duplicates, shades, pieces with selvage, souvenir sheets, etc. The downside for me is that no stamp has its own space. Others might look at that as a plus, but I guess I'm lazy and want my spaces plotted out for me. I want to know where the stamp is supposed to go.

That being said I use a mix of Steiner pages for some country collections and stockbooks for the rest of the world. You simply cannot beat how economical stockbooks are, both monetarily and with space. You can comfortably fit thousands of stamps in a single 64 page stockbook that takes up an inch of shelf space, no separate binder, mounts or hinges required. All for about $35. And I personally think the stamps look just as good in a stockbook as they do on a printed album page, but that's just my personal opinion.

Stamp may look good in a Stockbook with with clear band . But certennly not with glassine bands

I make some maths : for the 80,000 + stamps of a Steiner classic period album I will need for $ 7300 of mounts . 6800 pages of Stockbook cost me $ 5000 and I don't count the paper, binders and ink for the strikers pages

But for stamps over 1940 we can use hinges so it's way more convenient to print only the steiners pages needed. It's more easy to add a Steiner page on a binder than move all the stamps in a stockbook

That would be a pretty sparse layout in a stockbook - something like 12 stamps per page. For small, definitive type stamps (by far the most common size, pre-1940), you can fit up to 80 stamps on a page fairly comfortably, or over 5000 for an entire 64-page stockbook. I'd guess that if you averaged out the size of the stamps of that era (inc. larger commems), you'd be fairly safe in figuring somewhere around 50-60 stamps per page, with little to no overlapping of stamps. You could probably fit the entire 1840-1940 catalog of stamps in about 20 to maybe 25 64-page stockbooks. You'd be looking at somewhere around $800 for the stockbooks, with no need to buy mounts or hinges or binders, and it would only take up 2 feet of shelf space. By comparison, if hinging stamps on a printed page, hinges alone would probably cost around $250 for modern hinges, over $1000 if using Dennison hinges. Then you'd have to add the cost of pages, binders, slipcases, etc.

Artful

80,000 Prinz hinges would cost me around £80. Bisect them - as I do - and it's £40.

Geoff

I have my 140k+ worldwide collection housed in 160 stockbooks with glassine band. Unfortunately I agree with Area66, they would have look better with clear pockets. And I agree stockbooks are flexible in the way you can give room for just how much you like. Still, when a stockbook page is full, it is full.... My recommendation: start with Vario pages. They offer maximum flexibility, no need for hinges - and the stamps look great in clear pockets on black background. I simply regret I did not choose them from the start....

It's never too late to start

Plus, even used stock books so long as they are in pretty good condition, have definite resale value to other collectors. I ended up recouping about 60% of my purchase cost on stockbooks that I had bought before switching to Varios when I offered them for sale off and on over at the --other-- stamp forum.

Or do as I do make a layout for each stockbook or stocksheet using a program like excel and then you will have everything spaced out before hand, and just need to put the stamps you get in the future on the right page in the right spot on the page.

Yes it takes time to work a layout up, but once its done it will not probably need to be redone in any dramatic fasion unless you skip a whole catalog section for a nation. And making layouts ahead of time give you a chance to become familiar with the catalog listings for a country so you know what is out there, and what varieties might be worth looking for (esp if, like me, you make use of a wide range of specialized catalogs for different nations).

DJCMHOH, Thanks! I am still considering to swap to Varios. But I am a little lazy at nature....and I rather spend the time looking for new additions. Hopefully some day.

No worries Blaamand, I was only being partially serious. You have invested a significant amount of time building up all those albums so it would be a major investment in time (and some money, though as I pointed out you can prob get a good amount of the original cost of the stockbooks back reselling them) to switch to a whole new system of organization.

Eventually every collector finds the system that works best for that individual collector.

DJ

And on the way to "eventually", they spend a lot of time and money flitting between systems and keeping Leuchterm, Schaubek, Gibbons, Davo et al in business!

Geoff

Here my serious tough on the subject



With Steiner's pages in Plastic Protectors, using stamps mounts it's hell; stamps move all the time in the mounts and it's hard to replace them, Stamps mount with hinges are not a problem



Stockbook is also problematic; every time I turn pages of stockbook, stamps get pull out in part or totally from the strip , Stockbook are static you can't move the pages



Vario are sensitive to mark, so you have to keep your fingernails short, lol



I redo some math, if I use a $ 8 Staples binders, Vario cost the same as a stockbook and it's not static. Using vario, you can scan the stamps very easy.



Few advantages using Vario over printed page



1- You can add at the side another stamps of the same denomination.

2- You don't need to redo a page and scrap mounts to make change, you just move few stamps and label

3- Self-adhesive stamps are not a problem; you just leave them on paper.

4- Stamp look better on black pages but not as good on black mounts on cream or white pages.



But vario is not as easy as album pages to turn.

Soccerfan -

At the time your old Statesmen Albums were issued (what are the copyright dates of the 2 volumes?) they were probably just one volume albums. One might have been a Statesmen and the other a Statesmen Delux.

Here is a link that provides information on more recent publication of the Statesmen albums:
http://www.coinsupplyexpress.com/st...o2gQod1k8P5A

Blaamand, Congrats on reaching 140K, no small feat there! I still use Harris for stamps from the past 30 years. Getting annual supplements from Scott or Minkus for 30 years would cost one about $3,000 and probably more! Harris supplements are less than $20 a year. Of course they only cover a fraction of what is there for a given year. What I do then is use the supplements as a start, then incorporate Harris quad pages, Vario stock pages or clear letter sheet protectors for covers and large sheets of stamps. I have an adjustable hole puncher set for the Harris Binders. It's not perfect and I would love Scott Internationals through part 48. Harris Binders are pretty lousy except certain older Standard binders...