Have You Ever Completed A Stamp Album?

Some years ago, I decided to focus on completion of countries rather than filling an album. Last time I looked, I need just one major variety each to have complete collections of Lourenco Marques and Portuguese Congo. Ponta Delgada, Horta, Funchal all are complete; Angra misses one cheapo stamp, which can be harder to find than expensive semi-rarities. Other Port. colonies will be more difficult, at least those that issued more than a handful of stamps, like Kionga. Only 4-5 copies exist of one early Portuguese India stamp, for example.

Same here, plus the only pre-printed album I have is my childhood Harris Traveler, which needless to say isn't my primary album anymore. I collect the world and also have a specialized German-area collection, housed in a mix of Steiner pages, Vario pages and stockbooks. None of those can clearly be defined as an actual album; stockbooks and stocksheets for obvious reasons, and with Steiner I more or less set my own cutoff dates and arrangement of pages within binders. In other words, Steiner is too easy to become "artificially" complete by leaving out pages. I do admire those who purchase a challenging worldwide album like the Big Blues and try to complete them, though.

No
I like to use empty albums where you put whatever you want because it is more fun since you can also add other stamps which arent on there and there is always something to do which makes the hobby more nice. If I would be done with it all than hobby would get boring quickly. Last I like it when I dont know the stamps its like a suprise for me.

nope

I'm glad someone does

Family,

Going back to the initial post, it seems that no one here has completed an album other than the OP's fellow stamp club member. And he still has a dozen stamps to go. I agree with you, dbuss. His feat is most remarkable and I would have liked to have seen it myself,

Jack Kelley

Same here Jack - I have multiple albums including the 6 Scott International Volumes and they are never going to be filled before I go to hell ! hahahahah LOL
The fun is to get there (not hell).........

The completion of my album(s) would require an expenditure in the 8-figure realm. Thus it is not a realistic possibility. That said, I do try to fill as many spots as I can reasonably afford. While I would likely experience immense satisfaction at completing such a project, this would almost certainly pale in comparison to the many fulfilling (and occasionally frustrating) hours of enjoyment that the long trek entails. I treasure the journey but consider the (unattainable) destination merely an afterthought.

A completed Big Blue 1840-1940 (35,000 stamps)- thanks to Bud - that is getting scanned and shown on my blogsite.

http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.co...d-index.html

Congrats jk !
I have 5 other albums to fill + 6 other specialized - life is beautiful !

Jim,

I have never seen such a comprehensive collection as Bud's. Truly impressive.

Jack

The level of completion of Mitchell Ward's worldwide collection is stunning.

http://mitch.seymourfamily.com/mwar...apindex.html

Quote:
Going back to the initial post, it seems that no one here has completed an album other than the OP's fellow stamp club member. And he still has a dozen stamps to go. I agree with you, dbuss. His feat is most remarkable and I would have liked to have seen it myself,

Jack Kelley
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Perhaps it's madness on my part but I got inspired by my club member's accomplishment. (By the way, I incorrectly identified his album -- it is a Harris Traveler album from 1955 with spaces for about 11,000 stamps.) I recently purchased a Harris Statesman Deluxe album published in 1963. It was in good condition with only 450 or so stamps in it. I started combing through my duplicates and found that I was able to fill quite a few spaces already. Nevertheless, the Statesman has spaces for 25,000 stamps. As we know, Big Blue has spaces for 35,000 stamps. The advantage of the Statesman is that it emphasizes stamps from the 1930s to early 60's. These are the stamps I remember collecting as a kid. And they are much more attainable and cheaper! So, worldwide collectors looking for a more modest challenge than shooting for a completed Big Blue, perhaps an old Traveller, Ambassador or Statesman might be the way to go. The pleasure of filling spaces lives on.
D. Buss

I have nearly completed a Ceres album for France from the late 1970s. Of course, I eased the task of completion by removing pages for souvenir sheets and for more obscure categories in the back of the book.

Also, I carefully placed mounts so as to conceal spots for stamps such as the Vermilion and the Prussian Blue that, were I to obtain them, would be kept in a safe deposit box instead of my album.

D. Buss -great idea! Perhaps I need to pull out my old (childhood) Citation.