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

Oooopps! What about the binder, any damage? Hope not.

I have received several lots from ebay sellers with stamps in top loaded mounts, and often those stamps have tilted during handling to. So I guess using mounts are not much better than Varios with regards to keeping the stamps fixed. (?)

No problem Jon, no damage all , it was a very "light" drop, but with plenty of stamp movement. BTW, it was my Austro-Hungarian postmark album .

I use mounts with top and bottom closures, so there is very little movement. I size them as tight as possible, but not TOO tight.

Aside from the slipcases, I keep Vario binders in a closed cabinet to further reduce exposure to dust. With respect to some of the original themes in this thread, I wonder if dark grey copy paper would look decent enough in Vario pages so as not to be too distracting to the eye? Of course, I am still not sure how to print legible copy on grey paper, but it would solve the issue of laser toner having contact with the gum.

http://www.officedepot.com/a/produc...Letter-Size/

While I was thinking this problem over again in my mind, I did come up with an idea. It is possible to put a "false" backing behind stamps that can be made of either acid-free black paper or a plastic archival film. Then, the printed tabs used by Blaamand are sized to be taller than the false backing so that any printed text is visible. In this case, the tab can be plain white paper since it is placed behind the false backing, printed in black. This scheme would solve a few problems:

1- Only black is seen except the for the white tab ABOVE the stamp that has black on white printed copy, preserving the aesthetics of the presentation. Likewise, if a single false backing is used, there will be no gaps to distract the eye as there may be with tabs printed black with laser toner
2- The additional layer in the slot would make the stamp fit a bit more snugly, perhaps (partially?) overcoming the tendency of stamps to tilt in the Vario slots
3- No direct laser toner exposure on the backs of the stamps.

Pros & Cons

If acid-free paper is used, the method is cheap however one is still exposing mint stamps to paper.
If a mount or other material is used, it does sort of partially obviate the value of using Vario pages in the first place. For me, if the plastic is black, archival and cheap, I may be able to justify this scheme by a) the money saved on using a ton of toner or ink jet ink, and b) the added stability afforded by filling the Vario slot a bit more

This is a bit more work to execute than just sticking stamps into Vario pages, however it's less work than cutting mounts to size (which I absolutely HATE), and mounting the stamps one at a time onto a page. I'm positive this would be faster and easier.

I am inclined to not use copy paper depending on whether I can find an archival film that can be cut to fit the Vario slots left-to-right. Stamp mount strips might be pricey for this approach and may not be available long enough to fit the entire slot. Any ideas on a black archival product that could be used as the false back?

General thoughts?

Brian, I'm glad your album escaped unharmed. Delighted you're keeping your Austrian postmark collection alive, would love a sneak

Shermae, printing on grey paper is an interesting suggestion. I've already attempted the 'looks' by having the background of my tags printed in grey shade, and personally I was not too happy with grey slips on the black Vario pages, but that's just me. Hope you try it out and find it useful. If you do, please share the result with us.

Unfortunately there have not been much response from forum members concerning bad experiences with ink/toner migration onto stamps. I choose to understand that as good news. As they say, no news are good news.... So I keep making my tags with background in black ink. I think it is doing wonders on my pages.

Here what I do now, I just received 16 Vario Classic Binders and 100 packs of Vario today, I will transfer everything from my Scott albums ( did I not told a week ago that I will burn the Scott album,,,,lol )
I place the stamps in Vario, scan the page at 600 DPI, then I made a pages with Powerpoint and I crop and paste only section of the Vario sheet and I save in Jpeg and place them in a folder
So I just flip from one page ( image ) to another like if it was an album, Made advantage I can zoom on scan and no need to turn the physical Vario pages, I simply put a handwrite small label on Vario as reference.

I can then add watermark, and other stuf to a page, even cover that are not on the same VArio..... it's way more easy to turn images on a PC and more portable too...If I want change something, I just reopen the Powerpoint and save it again in JPEG, no more paper, mounts , ink and still stamps at available well protected in Varion for let say a scan at 1200 dpi if needed

those are duplicate stamps I used for test. one is actually upside down, lol



this is the actual vario ( it's printed label but next one will be done by hand )

Here a closeup, at 600 dpi is not that bad..... fror special case, you can scan the Vario at 1200 DPI, for general purpose it's to much

Shermae, I appreciate your involvement on this subject

Your last suggestion is also interesting, adding kind of an interleave between the stamp and the printed paper tag. Hope you will try it.

For any stamps with any value (>10$) I am putting them in mounts, which would achieve the same purpose as you are suggesting. It does take a little time, but I can manage. Not too any of those medium/high value stamps anyway. If doing something similar for all stamps however, that would take more time...but it would be safe and look great!
With regards to stamps shifting, I really do not see that as a problem, but I have learned to be careful to ensure all stamps are properly stuck down into the bottom of the pocket. I am travelling WW with my albums in a suitcase being handled quite hard on those airport conveyors and by groundstaff personnel, and still I very rarely see any stamps shifting. And for sure those stamps that have an additional backing by a ID tag fit even more snuggly in the pockets and are even less exposed for shifting.

Idea: for use as your safe interleave, you could cut blank Vario interleaves in stripes, then cut the stripes to squares. Guess one interleave would be sufficient for 50-60 stamps or more, so it would be quite cheap...?

Don't need special software , you just use the Windows Photo Viewers included with Windows and click on next page or previous ( red lines )

Area66 - wow, that's a great combination of physical very safe and convenient storage, and at the same time you make it look great in your virtual album. Cool concept

Blaamand- are the Vario interleaves long enough so that if I wanted one long strip to fit into a slot I could do that? I don't want sqaures- I want to fill the entire slot with one piece of plastic. Then the paper tabs go behind the long strip.

It's so quick to do, no need to scan individual stamps. In less time that it will take to print a Steiner pages, cut the mounts and fix the stamp, you have a physical and digital version done. If you have 20 stamps per pages, it cost 3 cents each stamp with Vario compare to the 10 cents of mounts + paper + ink

Yould you not like to have your full stamps collection on your laptop, onboard of your ship at sea ????????

Yes, no problem - and a great idea

- Absolutely. I'm already scanning my pages and uploading to skydrive, for instant access anywhere.

Still your idea is a concept to consider. As you're aware, I've already been playing with digital /virtual album pages, where I have cropped and inserted each stamp onto the digital page, one by one. I have enjoyed it immensely, but it did take lots of time. Your concept would be a huge time-saver. The stamps are already arranged in my Vario albums, it would just be a matter of cropping each series / groupes and add directly on the virtual page. And then add any custom border, text etc as you have done. I like it, thank you for sharing the idea o

Well Area66 seems to have a shifting problem too . Maybe I am just to much of a perfectionist