PDF Style Stamp Album Pages

I saw on ebay fully annotated PDF pages to print your own stamp album for almost any foreign country. Most only provide spaces large enough for the stamp, but not a mount.

I've been looking for an album for Slovakia (1993-present) without breaking the bank. I finally did find an annotated one that provides plenty of space for a mount. But, since the seller is UK based, the pages are set up for A4 paper. Not sure how this will turn out if printing on 8.5" x 11".

Has anyone ever purchased these PDF style pages for any country for their own use? Comments? Thanks.

There was one seller who sold PDF album pages and he provided samples to print. I printed one (A4) and it fit on the page but frame was closer to edge as would be expected. You can request a sample page to test.

You should avoid those ebay sellers -- many of whom are pirating copyrighted material.

For quality design, reliability, and support, you should go directly to

http://www.stampalbums.com/

Also, know as "Steiner Page" after the creator, William Steiner.

KirkS

The seller I had looked at had pages in Stanley Gibbons order with images. I am not sure if they were pirated but looked different than what I had seen from anyone else. Yes there are pirated Steiner pages floating around.

Bill Steiner's pages which are linked above are the simplest, easiest, least expensive way to print out pages for your use. Many of the other sellers of 'print yourself' album pages may be just fine, but the ones I've looked at always seem to have something I don't like. Either they're too expensive, have borders which I find unattractive, they print stamp images in color which I think very much detracts from the page where I want the blank spaces to be empty and the stamps to provide the color, and so on. Some of these stamp album programs may even be selling you material already copyrighted by others.

The Steiner pages are completely legit and are certainly the most popular. You can go to his website and print out some sample pages. Subscribing for a year to his website, or buying his CD, is very inexpensive (compared to buying albums). It is possible to print his pages on larger pages than the standard 8.5 x 11" computer paper size. You'll just need a wide-format printer plus the larger paper, of course. Without modification, the page image will remain the same even on the larger paper. Buy there are ways to modify it (I"m told) to expand the page margins to fit larger pages a little better.

Thanks for the feedback! Looks like I will check out Steiner pages instead.

Wow, what a sweeping, completely false, and possibly libellous generalisation.

Just because some pages may look similar to Steiner's, or anyone else's for that matter, does not justify accusations of piracy, there are just not that many ways of laying out a basic unadorned album page. And, as pointed out by angore, many of the pages are in Gibbons order which means that they are most certainly not pirated Steiner pages which as far as I am aware are based on the Scott sequence instead.

Besides which I know of at least two (and possibly more) ebay sellers who use AlbumEasy to produce the pages that they sell. In these two cases both vendors emailed me for permission. Something which was was completely unnecessary as there are no restrictions on what can be done with AlbumEasy created pages, but I nevertheless appreciated the courtesy.

Steiner pages are great, but they don't suit everyone, not everyone likes the cookie cutter approach, nor are they an option for the specialised collector who will likely have to resort to producing custom pages either by hand or using suitable software such as the free AlbumEasy (which I think is great, but I am biased of course) and Scribus (which I find time consuming to use), or one of the commercial packages such as AlbumGen which I personally have had no experience with.
Clive

For example, France Timbre offers free pages for the French area and many other countries. These are not pirated from Steiner - not least because they use Yvert catalogue numbers

http://album.france-timbres.net/muneaux/

I have seen plenty of album pages that look IDENTICAL to Steiner pages, except they contain images on them. When I contacted the seller, they told me they had a license from Bill Steiner to use his pages and they added images to them. I actually emailed Mr. Steiner about some seller and he never responded.

So, it could be true. When I asked him about Palo stamp albums, he did reply to me comfirming that Palo did have a license to use his pages.

If you're buying A4 pages on CD, I would strongly suggest that you ask for a sample PDF. If the seller is using Steiner pages, it's good to make sure that he didn't just stretch the pages to make them fit to A4, which will distort the stamp boxes.

Thanks, again, for all of the comments.

Since I'm not (yet) a subscriber to Steiner Pages, I do have a question re how his pages are set up. Do his pages contain 2 years on the same page? For example, say that the last stamp for 2002 is located about 1/4 way down the page.........does the year 2003 begin right under that, or does the new year (2003) begin with a new page? The page examples that I received from the ebay vendor is like the former...ie 2 years could be on the same page. They don't start the next year with a new page. If Steiner is set up the same way, then I suppose that the pages offered on ebay could be a Steiner copy....with images added.

Cougar1, just post 1 page, we gone tell you right away. Of course when a Country have only few stamps a year, Steiner will put 2 years on the same page. All companies that print albums do the same.

Me it's the fact he use Scott that don't suit me for many countries. But it's only a small detail as you can modified them with OpenOffice Draw. He already made the biggest part of the work. And even if you do your own pages from scratch they are valuable as you can use them as reference for the size of the box.

Here is an image:

If one goes the Steiner route, you can always redo some of the earlier years. SG always has more listing than Scott for British area. In my cross checking between Scott / SG (track both), they usually follow same format after 1945. It is in the earlier years with different dies or colors for same demonination where they group items differently.

here the same page from Steiner ..... I think the anwser is very clear , beside the pages you purchase are useless unless you use black mounts , the images are the same size as the real stamps, or larger in the case of the St-Georges it will show.

Here is an ebay listing on A4 pages following SG format. There are options beyond Steiner.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Print-a-Mal...262997100195