Looking For An Album For A Czech Country Collection

I keep dithering about what the "best" album would be to house my Czech Country collection. I currently have it scattered in Lighthouse Vario stock pages, Steiner Pages and a Schaubek hingeless album that I got for a song on an Amos Publishing closeout sale. I'm looking for one album to house them all. Wondering about Scott Specialty Series and Minkus Single Country Albums in addition to other suggestions you all might have. I like the ease of the Schaubek album, but the cost to acquire the additional pages and binders seems extreme. Does anybody have info on what weight the Scott and Minkus pages are? Are they both "acid free"?

Yes, they are acid-free.

Why not just use Steiner pages for your Czech collection? Another good option would be Palo or maybe Davo has a Czech album.

I collect Czechoslovakia, Czech Republic, and Slovakia stamps. I found that just using Steiner pages was my best option. I print them off on 110 lb card stock pages (acid free) as needed that I pick up at Wal-Mart. 150 sheets for $5.48

Minkus is now own by Amos and don't publish country albums anymore, just supplement and the Global, Supreme or whatever they call them . So your choice seem limited to Scott for preprinted albums, and it's a good choice, Palo are way too expensive, and frankly their 5 rings binders is not friendly at all. .

Czech collections tend to be pretty cheap. May be worth your keeping an eye on auctions and picking one up in Schaubek or Lighthouse albums, at a fraction of the albums' retail price. In my view, Schaubek are way better than Davo.

Davo Luxe are very good album and and they cost twice less than other brand

I don't think Davo make Czech album

shop in Prague...
http://stampsjournal.com/stamp-hunt...ch-republic/
http://www.radio.cz/en/section/curr...e-in-decades

Very interesting links, perf12

The Davo albums are not cheap, about $100+ per volume and for most countries you'll need many volumes. I don't think a Minkus album for "Czechoslovakia" is sold anymore, If it is, I doubt it's up to date or being supplemented. The expensive German albums like Schaubek and Lighthouse are like Davo -- pretty darn expensive. The happy medium is Scott. Its albums are well done, not as expensive, and can be supplemented without difficulty. Scott has two binding options -- 2-post binders or three ring. But there's no reason you can't punch your own pages to suit whatever binders you have -- providing you own a suitable hole punch. I punch Scott pages for 22-ring binders because I like that look better than three rings which looks too "school boyish" and inelegant to me. I'd go with Scott for a Czech and Slovak collection since it would look good and not be too expensive. People spend far too much on albums when they should be buying stamps.

I have nothing against Steiner pages, and you should look at them. Most people print them on computer-sized paper (8.5 x 11", though, which some (and I'm one of them) find too small and inelegant for an album.. I find the small pages too crowded. These pages can also be punched for different types of binder, as well, if you have the right hole punch.

Drew

Where did you find a 22-ring hole punch? Or do you have a printer punch the pages for you?

Geoff

I found my 22-hole punch on ebay. Not the most common type of punch, but they do exist.

I have to buy 22-ring binders from Europe. A little more expensive than U.S. 3-ring binders, but worth it to me for the improved look. I used 3-ring binders for awhile, but didn't like the look that much. The Lighthouse Vario-F padded 3-ring binder is very nice, and it came with a slipcase for around $35 or so. But again the 3-ring look didn't appeal to me.

I like the look of 22-ring pages/binders. More (and smaller) rings seem to make the rings less noticeable.

In Europe, they use a 4-ring binder most often, it seems. European album makers all have their own proprietary ring binders with different numbers of rings -- 6 for Schaubek, a different number for Lighthouse and all the others. It's to make you buy only their pages. A bit strange. Another reason I decided to hole-punch some of my own pages. Since I didn't much like 3-ring binders, I finally settled on 22-rings since those binders were often used for blank albums in Europe. And of course you can easily buy 22-ring blank pages in Europe. Try Prinz (UK) or Dauwalders Stamp Shop in Salisbury. Or buy a punch (if you can find one), and hole punch your own pages.

Thank you - didn't spot one, but I'll keep looking. I use Dauwalders quite a lot. I like their springback binders, which are made by Lighthouse, and for which they also supply black leaves, which are tricky to find these days. One problem with the 22-ring binders is that the leaf size has changed over the years, so a supply now may not fit an older album, hence my interest in finding the punch.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Based on the input I've received, I've been doing a lot of online research to find the "perfect" album for my Czech collection.

The truth is that if I'd never stumbled on the Schaubek pages I would probably still be happy with the Steiner pages I started with.

Here's what my searching has led to in terms of costs- not that that's the only factor- but it's a thing. I'm posting my outcomes so that others might benefit from the information. Except where noted the cost are for pages covering 1918-1959. And, of course we're not exactly comparing apples to apples here- different brands use different weight paper and mounting systems are varied from just blank pages to Lindner's archival T-system, but here's what I found for what it's worth.

Lindner- they were running a special which included binders- $463.00
Palo (1918-1957)- hingeless: $335.00; regular: $115.00; economy: $95.00 Proprietary binders for Palo pages will run $45.00 each
Lighthouse-$244 (hingeless) Binders: $58.00
Schaubek- $204 (regular) $346 (hingeless) includes screwpost binders
None of the above covers 1939-45 the two following do
Scott $59.49 (regular) Binder $34.00
Minkus $38.89 (covers 1918-1994), Binder 33.99 (available from Amos Advantage)

Minkus appears to be the loss leader here, but I'm not sure what I would be getting from the information I've been able to turn up through a search. Still, I might purchase a set just to check them out and save them for a used collection. And there is still the Steiner Option to consider. I'm going to be projecting it's real cost on another thread unless another thread has already done that and somebody can point me toward it and save me the trouble.

Another good option, especially for a single country collection, would to be use Steiner pages as your base and modify them to add additional information such as catalog numbers, varieties, change the font, etc. Could even add some historical information and pics. It can be fun and adds another dimension to your collecting.

Then, these pages could be either 3-hole punched or placed into page protectors and put into nice binders such as the Vario G or Vario F binders.

I have several examples on this, and other, stamp forums.

Just another thought.

You can see why Scott albums and pages are so popular. They're very well designed, sturdy, good looking, and widely available at a reasonable price compared to the somewhat more elegant (but not by much, in my opinion) European pages from Lighthouse, Schaubek, and so on. Whenever I'm tempted to put a collection into a new Lighthouse album, for example, all I have to do is add up the cost of the pages and I talk myself out of it. While an entire country's stamps might cost $300 or $400 to house in a Scott album, a Lighthouse, Schaubek, (or DAvo which you don't list) album can easily cost over $1000. Often much more than that. I really prefer to spend my hard-earned money on stamps, stamps, and more stamps, not on "equipment".

Users of Steiner pages would agree that too much money is spent on albums. But if you use Steiner, you're still left with little "elegance", and I do like attractive, even elegant albums. Steiner pages certainly are the thing of the moment, but as much as I like them and their price point (which is amazingly cheap), I find it hard to warm up to using small 8.5 x 11" pages. There is an alternative, though, which is to have Steiner page layouts printed on larger Minkus or Scott pages. The result is closer to the roomier look I prefer at a cost of 25-30 cents a page, depending on which size you choose. So 100 pages is no more than $30 printed and mailed to you. Search "Album Pages" and you'll find the website. They can go into a Scott binder(2 post or 3-ring whichever page punch you order) or you can hole punch them to fit another type of binder, providing you've got the correct hole punch, of course.

Palo pages also have the same "size problem" as they're also 8.5 x 11". For me, that's too small.

I love the prices of Schaubek blank pages, perhaps the least expensive of the major album publishers, and they are very good pages, as good as Lighthouse and others for much less money. A hidden secret for collectors. They're hole punched for the Schaubek 6-hole system, so you can use them in the very nice Schaubek ring binders for not much money. A Schaubek binder filled with 100 blank pages is going to cost maybe $50-60. That's less expensive than a Scott binder with blank pages! And the Schaubek pages are larger and look better. Or hole punch them, as I did, and use them in 22 ring binders.

One advantage of blank album pages is that what you create is entirely yours, reflecting your aesthetic sense, and it will be more of a personal expression or artistic creation than the normal album. It will take somewhat more work, but it's not hard. In fact, using black (or clear, really) stamp mounts does most of the work for you as all you really have to do is line the stamps up and then add identifying information -- handwriting is most appealing to me as I like craftsmanship far more than computer printers and the like. But I'm a bit old-fashioned!

Minkus pages look a bit cheaper. They're thinner weight. Also, they aren't updated often, if at all. What you buy may be the entire album with no way to add later years unless you use blank pages. Worth keeping in mind.

You don't mention Davo albums which are very nice, though not particularly inexpensive. Also, there may still be Kabe albums for Czechoslovakian stamps, as well. They were always very nice. Lighthouse may still have them in print. You might check both of these publishers just to confuse the issue even more! Good luck.