Don't Know Which Choices To Make

Hello friends,

I have recently gotten back to my Vatican City collection, and have a few questions. My father-in-law subscribed through the Vatican Philatelic Office through most of the 1980s. He gave me everything he had, which includes:

-The envelopes in which the stamps were sent, with nice cancellations.
-The stamps from the release, usually in multiple formats:
-individual stamps
-pairs of identical stamps
-individuals with selvage (often the whole release with the same selvage piece on each)
-pairs or blocks of four or six, often with selvage
-the annual philatelic folder describing the releases.
-Two catalogs from the Vatican with complete year listings.

I have Scott Vatican City pages, now in a nice leather archival binder I purchased from a scrapbooking place (the Scott binder rings are awful, at least on this binder). So, I'm struggling with how to best mount these stamps.

If I have selvage to the sides, it's pretty easy, because the overall height is the same.

If I have selvage above or below, it's tough because it pushes all the stamps further down the page, and sometimes there is not enough room.

Should I break pairs to get singles? I don't yet know what I want to do with any of the excess stamps, be they pairs, singles, or blocks, with or without selvage.

Ultimately, because I work for the Church and am interested in the stories behind the releases, I want to make my own custom album with much more "spread out" pages with descriptions and narration (perhaps even for an exhibition). Are some blank album pages (companies) better than others?

Basically, although I know it's my collection and I can do as I please, I'd like to make the best choices possible with what I have, and am too inexperienced to know what those choices are. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I often add pages to my album to include extra stuff. So on the preprinted page, I'll place singles. Then I'll add a page with blocks of four, or a series of errors, or a full sheet, etc. This is why my US collection is now 10 volumes.

My opinion:

1. Good husbandry would dictate that you preserve Philatelic material to the highest order.
eg Preserve Pairs, preserve multiples, selvedge etc.

To do this you can mount the original formats on your own designed pages.




Given that, you then can decide on what you separate and downgrade,
it may be, your decision to separate low value common material
(separate minimal value definitive pairs etc)

You may wish to draw the line at blocks of 4, ANY marginal markings material,
any more valuable singletons, that you find in multiples.

If you have a singleton of any issue, then always mount, and preserve any multiples of its siblings.

Your commentary sounds very sensible, I am sure you will make prudent decisions.

Just curious about the alternative binder you found that fits Scott pages. Any brand name you can share with us?

I find that the G&K type 8200A binders from Subway Stamp Shop work well for holding Scott album pages.

Stamps1962, it's a scrapbooking album from a company called "We R Memory Keepers". It's a D-ring binder, and it is a bit longer than the Scott pages, but not "longer enough" to bother me compared to the broken Scott binder (which wasn't cheap).

Thank you all so much for your advice :-)

Hope you have found good recommendations from the members and wish that your decision be the best (for you) ! Bye and best wishes !