Do You Ever Have A Feeling Of Sorrow?

I believe OCD is a prerequisite.
Thanks Phil - my first quote!

You know, I actually just searched for and found this web site to ask a similar question... so it's actually kind of relieving to bump into this post immediately upon finding this site!

My father passed two years ago, he got me into stamp collecting as a kid and I was into it up until high school, then got back into it a bit after college.
Long story as short as possible, He left me his entire collection, and for the first few months I let the albums sit but I eventually replaced the old ben gay stained plastic mystic american heirloom three ring binders with the nice leather slipcase variety. I felt his smile from up above.

Then I started on his old set of 4 Regent 2 post binders which he had his used world collection in.

My first ... contribution to his collection was cleaning up and reinforcing the binders which were completely falling apart, taped, retaped and taped again for the past few decades. I cleaned off the tape goo and have the binders nearly restored but man they do not keep the pages or the stamps in very safe state.

A family friend caught wind of my endeavors and gave to me a complete set of musty yet nearly new and fully compete almost unused scott international pages and binders.

So for the past year on and off I've been spending huge chunks of time transplanting my father's stamps from his mounts in his albums (which were once HIS fathers) into the Scott albums which are in MUCH better condition.

The first few hours of doing this were REALLY exciting.. the next day I started feeling regret - oh my god what have I done?!?

This all eventually passed and I now really enjoy spending time working with my Dad's stamp collection - I think in the end I've decided that although I may be disrupting history or defacing his efforts (and his fathers - oh my god what have I done!?) I still know somewhere he's looking down smiling and beyond delighted that I'm getting enjoyment out of it all.

It's been great as the scott albums are FAR more comprehensive so I'm finding all sorts of little mistakes or ways my Dad got clever finding spots for stamps that didn't have spots.

ANyway... cool to find this thread :)

That is all!

I hope that's not all.

Great story! I sure Dad and Granddad would have loved the Scott Internationals. How's the remounting going?

Thanks
It's going well! It took me a lot longer to get from A to C than I thought it would but that's progress! His used world-wide collection was three Regent and One Crown 2 post albums, nearly every page back to front full. The original pages end around 1965 but he supplemented with a good bit of minkus pages in through to the late 70s.

I read that some folks scan pages. That would have been laborious but cool to have scans of each page as they were but I took a nice 1080p fixed overhead video of flipping through every page with about a 4 second pause between pages before doing any remounting so that's just about as good.

It does tear me up though. The time my Dad spent putting these books together. it really was a labor of love and I certainly get a feeling when I stop and think about it but I'm pretty sure I agree - he and his dad would really love the scott internationals. When they were given to me they were supplemented up to '67. Over the past year I've stockpiled brand new packages of '68 all the way up to '73 from ebay auctions. I've my eye on a few others ending in a few days then I'll put em in order and start filling with those. I also went nuts with plastic interleaving sheets, I picked up a half dozen packages or so and am putting those between all of the earlier pages to protect the older stamps.

I'm not a big fan of how wrinkled the scott pages get, It's pure irony that I also inherited his marble chess set, which has a felt-back marble chess "board" that weighs a good 15 pounds which he used to flatten pages overnight, I've been using the same with a few boxes stacked on top to try and get the wrinkles out but there are some pages that are just inevitably a bit warped as they're full of stamps.

I'm really enjoying reading what all the different responses are to this original topic now. I often was curious when others inherit albums, pages etc if they ever feel weird pulling them apart. The archivist in me wanted to just preserve his albums as they were but actually going through every single stamp one by one is a real journey I almost feel my Dad is extending on through to me. It also feels really rewarding to put some of the stamps he couldn't find a place for in his regent pages in their proper home with the Scott pages. At first I didn't like how scott strictly ordered their pages based on year issue as this breaks up series of stamps which are released over the course of a number of years but in the end I really found it interesting to see the history of how the series was built while also finding a proper home for each stamp!

Obviously I've gotten this far I have to justify it but I'm also now able to combine both of our collections. I wasn't so keen on the idea of putting stamps into his crumbling albums.. This is a much better move forward.

Anyway, that's the long answer - thanks for asking! :)

Nice family friend to come up with the Internationals for you! Perhaps look for my thread in the Literature section called Antique Stamp Albums and post some photos of your Grandfathers? That's what that was intended for. I'm not familiar with the Regent album myself and would like to see. Welcome.

When I started this thread it was mostly about e purchases. I am now at, what for me, is going to be the emotional stage. My father's US collection. The new five albums for housing the contents of four separate collections including my dad's are ready to accept stamps. My strategy is to put everything that is not his in the new albums first. That will allow much of his original collection to stay in tact. I will save in that condition and someday one of my grandchildren can have a memory of Great or possibly Great-Great Grampa.