Combining Stamp Albums

I would like some advice on combining stamp albums. I own a 1975 Senior Statesman, a 1975 Harris Travelers, a 1970s Harris Deluxe, and a recently purchased 2010 Harris Deluxe (5 albums in total) and wish to combine them alphabetically. Most of my worldwide stamps are inexpensive and range from 1940 to present. I use Kenmore for the larger two holed blank pages and stamp hinges. Has anyone had any experience in putting together a unique collection?

Sorry, what is it you are think of doing? Taking all the pages out, re-ordering them and then putting them back to make a series of albums running A-Z?

Or are you meaning re-mount the stamps onto new pages?

I think you should keep them separate and not combine them. That's because each album has its own unique characteristics and should be completed on its own.

I would be taking the pages out and rescrewing them back to fit five or more albums from A-Z. I have about 500 stamps to add on the blank pages.

The real questions is what are you trying to accomplish? Are you looking for a way to have a country's stamps all together without having to remount them? Yes you could kind of accomplish this by reordering the pages. The problem is that the pages are both double sided, and some have more than one small country on a page. The solution to this is to pick and choose which double sided page you want to use. You may end up having to fill in a few black pages where none of the pages work together.

Or are you trying to create a unique album; an album that fits your specific needs?

This is what I have done with my US collection. I see the pre-made albums as a base, and I adapt them to my needs.

I started with a Scott National Album as my base album.

I have taken pages from other national albums that are incomplete (eg: I've take coil pair pages and filled them with imperf coil pairs). I've also found that older edition may have variations that I prefer (eg: older albums have spaces for both Scott #10 and Scott #10A). I'm not adverse to using another company's pages if they have the right look.

I've added specialty album pages (EG: album pages for booklet panes). My goal is not to just fill all the holes in the album as defined by Scott, I want to have a nice display of the stamps that interest me. So I've acquired collections on ebay, and worked those album pages into my collection.

I've made my own pages (eg: private perforations of the early 20th century). Sometimes I can't find pages to display want I want.

This is an ongoing process, as my interests wander. So I have a supply of stock pages that fit the albums. So I can add one of these pages, and experiment with layout until I accumulate enough stamps to create a page of my own. This also works well for the current year's stamps.

For me, collecting became more fun when I stopped feeling limited to pre-made pages.

I hope this helps.

Heck, just adding annual supplement pages to an album is problematic. I cannot imagine trying to combine 3+ separate albums even if they are from the same publisher. You must have masochistic streak .... If you only have 500 stamps (mostly post 1940s) I would just remount them in the new Harris Deluxe album and give the old albums to budding young collectors.

I agree with alub that you can use pre-made albums as a base and adapt them to your needs. The Harris 2010 album ends at year 2009 for US. I can easily add 1 to 10 US pages for each year after 2009.
There is nothing masochistic about combining stamp albums oldguy. Combining pages and albums helps one to track inventory, create want lists for missing stamps to sets, and even allows selling of duplicates.