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

Don, I think many of us are concerned about the amount of ink or toner involved. Old album pages were printed professionally using, I believe, a photo offset process with low ink density. Much less ink than home printing and presumably more stable. Again this is my belief based on common sense, I cannot back it with personal knowledge or proof sources.

I live in Florida but have no concerns about the environment. We all live in a "bubble" down here and use air conditioning almost year-round. But it does concern me to have a large collection of MNH stamps exposed to a solid block of black ink toner. Common sense suggests the ink from home printing will be more fugitive than something printed professionally. But is it a problem? Don't know.

One could argue that printing in a grey tone would potentially mitigate some of the risk, however there is no way to know up-front and how would grey colored tabs look over the black background of a Vario sheet?

Gentlemen - I do appreciate your feedback. This discussion is probably relevant for many others as well, not only for anyone considering to print 'black tags'. Will come back on that.

I am not asking about if we have seen ink migration in our own albums only - I am asking if we have seen ink migration in any of those old albums/pages we have seen, purchased and used as feeder albums for our own collections. Any ink-migration from any old source/album - which otherwise seems to have been stored in proper conditions. That would be interesting.

I agree with Shermae that most albums probably were printed with better ink - but for sure some off all those albums during all those years must have been printed with a more fugitive ink?

If looking at more recent years and the use of 'home' printers - what about all off those that are using Steiner pages, modified Steiner pages or any other homemade pages - with ink printed in the boxes with catalog number info, or even images etc. Even tough the amount of ink is less than a solid black background, the risk of ink migration should exist nonetheless, it will only affect smaller parts of the stamp. Has anyone experienced any ink migration from their own home made pages?

I don't know for how long folks have printed their own pages using their own printers, but I presume that started quite quickly after the household printers became available some 25-30 years ago. That should have given some time for anyone to detect if there is a risk involved? I have myself 'robbed' several homemade / home-printed pages - guess they must have been minimum 15-20 years old - and the stamps were in pristine condition.

Unless there is a significant observation that ink have migrated into stamps during the last 100 years - I for one will not be concerned at all for it to happen in my albums either.



Don - I applaud your consideration for the potential mistreatment of your albums from future owners. Still - whatever we do - we cannot possibly protect our stamps from what they might be exposed for after our time anyway - so why bother? It makes no difference if the stamps are placed next to ink or not if the albums someday will be stored in moist/fungus infected conditions. That is impossible to control or prevent - so I simply choose to not even think about it. When that day comes - I guess I have other 'things' I should be more worried about in concern to decomposing


Shermae - I actually tried printing grey tags, I did not fancy it myself. I also tried to keep the 'standard' size of the tag white - and only keep the tab above the stamp in black. I had high hopes for that solution, but the result did not look any good at all, in my opinion at least.

Please help - any Steiner page users - or other users of home made pages:

Have you encountered any issue with ink migration?



This page is presented as a sample on the 'Steiner' homepage. As can be seen, it offers some excellent reference with images of the overprints used. These are quite 'dark' - as in high ink density. I presume the same applies for very many other Steiner pages as well. Has anyone experienced ink from these pages migrating to your stamps?

Your feedback will be most appreciated for considering whether home printed 'black tags' behind stamps are harmful to stamps or not. Thank you for helping

I have not noticed any issues with ink migration on my Steiner pages, and I've used several kinds of paper on 2-3 different printers, with both manufacturer ink as well as cheap refill cartridges. My oldest Steiner pages are around 4 years old. I don't know for certain that the ink won't migrate at some point in the future, but I have no real reason to think it will.

@The ArtfulHinger - thank you very much - most useful and helpful feedback, straight to the point.

Ron has suggested 'extensive testing' of ink migration. That's a good advice - but I am unable to do so. However I think all of you Steiner page users - that have already exposed stamps for ink from home printers - have already taken part in a very extensive testing for many years. So now I am simply trying to gather the results from this 'live test'

So - Please - more feedback from other users of Steiner pages or similar will be highly appreciated

Blaamand just wondering if you have an update on how things are progressing with your albums.

@DJCMHOH - My apologies for late response, I have been offline and totally 'unstampy' for the past 6 weeks. Bad days!

(My wife has enforced a total ban of me working on my stamps while at home - so for now I will only work on stamps while at work offshore... )

Anyway, not much else to report on my progress, except Lithuania is done and dusted. This time the set-up was made following Michel cat - which called for giving a lot of additional space (compared to my previous setup in stockbooks) for all the series that were issued both perforated and imperforated.

I'm following the same method as presented in the OP for Luxembourg tough, and next up for me now is Jamaica - following Stanley Gibb.

How about you DJCMHOH - any update on your progress?

@ Blaamand - just posted my Tunisia pages to my blog.

Sorry to hear about your collecting ban at home, hopefully it will not be a permanent red card for you!

DJCMHOH - I just visited your blog - Very clean and nice pages, Gene ! Lot's of work for the initial set-up - but very handy at the time for your next update. I like it



Thanks - I am trying to have tons of patience....however if it drags out too far...

Going back to the topic of using Vario pages, I would like some opinions on the issue of static/dust issues and keeping stamps lined up.

I have found that it doesn't take very long before my Vario pages start collecting dust and paper debris due to static cling. Also, the stamps seem to slide around too much and don't stay lined up.

This really bothers me as it is very difficult to clean the dust off/keep things looking straight. It could be I am just being finicky

Due to the problems though, I am slowing switching over to Hagnar pages. They are tighter (hold the stamps better) and seem to be much less prone to static cling.

What do others feel about this?

3Dadeo - You're raising a valid point. The dust was my main concern before I even decided to go for the Varios - and it has proven to be the only thing I find to be annoying with these pages. Sometimes it seems a constant struggle to wipe off dust, even if the room and even the entire house is vacuumed with a central vacuum system thoroughly. I guess "I am just being finicky" to Impossible to find a solution to this, however the pages seems to loose some of their static electricity overtime. Anyway I have accepted this disadvantage as the price to pay for the sovereign flexibility of the system, so in the end I am still very pleased with the Vario system.

Until now I have not yet experienced much issues with stamps shifting. If so, it's because they were not properly stuck down into the bottom of the pocket in the first place. Sometimes if I am using pages with pockets not deep enough to cover the entire stamp, the stamps might shift while sweeping away dust though...so in those cases the problem is caused by myself being ignorant to select pages with less number of pockets. Could this be part of your problem?

I have no experience with Hagnar, so cannot answer on that.

Lighthouse stock-pages love dust, and I have a lot if it. I find Hagner pages much easier to use, because they're less rigid and they aren't sealed at the edges. But I wouldn't use either to display stamps!

I don't find the dust to be too much of a problem, once I have the Varo pages in a binder inside a slipcase. Out in the open the pages do seem to like to attract dust in the air, but a quick swipe with a dry dustcloth usually takes care of that for me.

Have not had the "stamp moving around inside the page" issue. Maybe an issue with older pages? Mine seem to keep the stamps nice and stable.

3Dadeo, I have the same problem. I have thousands of stamps (and postcards) in Vario pages. While I don't have TOO much of a dust issue, I really cannot stand crooked stamps on the pages . So it is not just you! I find the stamps constantly shifting and tilting, especially tall vertical stamps. I dropped a binder full of Vario pages and just about every stamp bounced out of place.

So for my main collections I am using homemade printed pages in top loading Staples plastic sleeves. I use hinges, as I collect mainly used, but for certain mint I use mounts.

Regardless, Blaamad (and others) have great ideas and pages. I will continue to use Vario pages for sorting and studying my stamps in preparation for future mounting, storing duplicates, and for postcards.

I use dust / slip covers for all my Vario binders. No issues with static cling or dust.