Do You Use Vario Pages - And How Do You Organize Your Stamps On Them?

btw - I will send my remainders from Luxembourg as a giveaway (after René and keijo have already been assigned their parts) to anyone that would able to guess what's the intention with those mysterious white micro-dots, at the top by the value-category on each tag.....
I will not hold my breath - my bet is that none will be able to figure out that one

When you replace the white paper with the dark tags- what material are they made from and how do you print them up?

Sorry for all the questions- this thread has my total attention and I'm looking for all your secrets lolol.

I simply print on white 'safe' paper.

For my previous tags I used borders/frames around each tag to assist with cutting, using scissors. However I have learned that using borders or frames simply makes things more complicated than doing without the borders. So instead of having borders and cutting with a pair of scissors - I do not use borders anymore and do not use scissors anymore either. I cut the entire sheet in one operation by using a breakaway razor knife guided by a metal straightedge (metal ruler).



To facilitate this I have equipped the sheets (tags-printout) with some small 'guiding lines' at each left and right margin - and some very small 'guide dots' vertically. Then I place the straightedge according to these and cut through the entire sheet, but keeping the outer white frame intact to keep everything in place until I have cut both vertically and horizontally.
This goes much quicker than using scissors - and the results get much more precise. And finally there are no borders, so the tags will also be more forgiving if one should happen to be imprecise, as there are no borders to indicate if the centering was not that good...

So the final tags are white printing on black copy stock? I'm confused on this point.

Shermae - no worries at all I wouldn't been posting if I did not appreciate and expect any feedback and/or questions. In my head this community is about sharing both facts/knowledge about stamps - but just as much ideas and viewpoints on how to go along. I am happy to share my ideas - and discussing them can only help to find subjects for improvement - and other ideas from you guys will help me. So thank you for asking, Shermae - appreciated - keep going

Sorry if I am not making myself clear and are confusing you ...
I am printing on white paper, using black ink

Microdots- my guess is that they are used to line up the ruler and the registration lines are used to make the actual cut. The microdots provide the correct offset from the ruler to the cutting device.

So why do the final tags look black with white printing?

Clever idea - but I am sorry to say that's nothing to do with it Shermae.... For cutting horizontal I only use the small guidelines at left and right of the margin - and for vertical I only align the ruler directly above those tiny vertical greyish lines at the top of each tag (difficult to see on the scan).




I have selected the background in each cell in excel to be black - and formatted all the text white. So in fact the printer is actually applying black ink on more or less the entire sheet - except for the text/figures. The white text is in other words the original white of the paper - the ink is missing - kind of printing a negative.

I use Vario Stock Pages (as Blaamand knows ) and my system is a bit different than his but somewhat related.

I first develop a "key" in excel (actually Open Office) that allocates a space for each stamp I wish to include on a page.

Here is an example from my French Morocco Collection I recently finshed.



I then print the excel "pages" on paper and insert them into archival-quality page protectors.

I then put stamps on the Vario pages using the "key" as a locator guide, so for the above page "key" this would result in



The "keys" are then inserted between two pages, so that pages that face left of the 3-ring binder have the stamps on the right with the key on its left



While for pages that open to the left of the 3-ring mechanism, the "key" will be to the rightSo for example the above was page 5 of my French Morocco, so page 6 will look like this.



The key for page 7 is then printed on the back of page 6 key, while page 5 is on the back of the page 4 key.

This makes it relatively easy for me to see where a stamp goes on a Vario page, and allows me to include info in the "key" such as catalog numbers (esp important for me since I also use a lot of specialized Catalogs), design info etc.

Only really difficult thing is the page design process, but I find that kind of work a relaxing way to do something philatelic when finances don't permit me to spend a heck of a lot on stamps.

double post

Oh sure you can Blaamand! Reach for the sky! You never know when you might win the lottery, or inherit from a long uknown wealthy relative, or find that amazing variety lurking in a stamp mixture unrecognized for decades.

This system works for you, Blaamand and I love your idea and it is a lot of work. As for my multiple albums, well this is what I have but not satisfied as most (ex: Scott International 6 volumes or Scott Junior (older albums) have limited space for all the varieries available but not present in the Albums. For Canada, since I use Lindner, I do what I want....plenty of space.I do not have #1 for the oldies and do not intend to pay that amount to get it (or maybe)...
As I said previously I printed Steiner pages for Canada, up to the 40s (1940) - Would like to put my Canada stamps here instead of Scott. I have to examine the space for various varieties, ex: Large Queens.
I am happy to have a good software program to keep up and produce reports I wish and know exactly where my stamps are.

Enough for this evening - I have to read your posts again to better understand !!

@DJCMHOH - Thanks for sharing your great work I absolutely admire your concept. Those old pictorial stamps simply look great on the Vario pages in general - and maybe even better when not 'disturbed' by any tags or information whatsoever. Really clean. Personally I would not have the patience for that detailed writeups - or have enough albums or shelves for a 'doubled' amount of pages - so I applaud your effort and determination. Keep it up!
May I ask - How do you organize any 'extra' stuff such as covers, blocks of 4, perfins, souvenir sheets, unlisted varieties, freaks, postmarks etc?


Ha ha - thanks for the encouragement - we both do
And thank you yet again for all your recommendations and support that led me into the 'Vario-route' - I will never look back

Thanks Blaamand!




I don't have a lot of those kinds of things, but they would go at the end of the appropriate album (I also do this for souvenir sheets and items that are too large to include on the regular pages along with the stamps.

One thing I do is as we get closer to contemporary issues, I switch page sizes, so pre-1960 or so (depending on country) I use 6S, then switch to 5S and then eventually 4S pages to accomodate se-tenant blocks of stamps that become common starting in the the 1970s-1990s (depending on the country).




I'm lucky, my partner and I have a 2 story Cape Cod-style house here in Columbus and the upstairs is a furnished "loft" that serves as my "den" (he has a solarium downstairs for his "den") so space for me is not really an issue, except that the stamps share space with my library of history books (about a dozen bookshelves worth), my music collection (over 6000 CDs plus around 1000 12" vinyl records ), and my computer setup.