Questions On Steiner Access & Printing

Thank you Rod, you have just added another reason to my mental list as to why I should use the steiner pages from the cd here:




You point out yet another excellent reason to go with Bill Steiner's pages, his alignment with Scott is huge, otherwise one would have to spend considerable time tying in ones album pages to Scott numbers without violating copyrights.

I am still on the fence but am leaning very far into the Steiner page camp. That is what I most likely will do, I will probably purchase within the next day or two. I can see why you said earlier that when you found the Steiner pages it was a big deal for you :) I think it will be a big deal for me too, that is a lot of work already done and I am sure it will be well worth the money, although I understand the price has gone up.

Thanks Rod, julie

Unlike Rod, I decline to employ Mr Steiner precisely because of his alignment with Scott.

If you aren't planning to build an extensive worldwide collection -or even if you are, for that matter, don't forget that you can simply use blank album leaves and lay out your stamps as you wish, without going near a computer.

Quote:
I employ Steiner due to his alignment with Scott, and especially "consistency"

I have written to Mr. Steiner a few times in the past about inconsistency in his album pages and his reply has always been, and I quote, "What can I say, I'm inconsistent."

How are those long nosed pointy tweezers going Julie?


Getting used to them?

Julie,

Just be aware that the Steiner pages are quite a bit more "spread out" compared to most regular stamp albums. This is compounded by them being a smaller 8.5"x11" sized format.

This is not so much an issue if you are only collecting one or a few countries, but if you are planning on collecting worldwide, its another thing all together. For example the Steiner pages just for the classic era (up to 1940) is 6500 pages, which will take up something like 40-50 or more binders.

"I'm going to need a bigger bookcase."

But, Julie,
with Steiner, you print "as required"
You only print the page to mount the stamp. (Always number your page)

When you receive the Steiner CD, copy onto your Hard drive.

With your "Back of book" always leave your pages at the rear of your stamp album, do not leave in Steiner number sequence.

GeoffHa said:


GeoffHa, why are you opposed to the Scott numbers, I think I have noticed that you are in the UK, is it because you employ either the Michel or the SG numbers as well? I take it there are reasons you may not agree with the way Scott has laid out certain areas? I would like to know what your reasoning is if you would be kind enough to share - I would really appreciate the input.

Rod said:



Hi Rod, I do not understand what you mean by "Back of book"?? So, not knowing much about the steiner pages yet, I am now wondering what is the main numbering system for the pages, does it go by Scott number sequence, or by old fashioned page number sequence? Or both possibly???

Chris2015 said:


Yikes! I don't believe I will ever have every stamp - I am too old, there are not enough years or enough money in the bank left for me to do that. One big regret that has struck me since finding these stamps and how all-consuming they can be is that I did not know about stamp collecting in my younger years. I feel like I have missed many years of good collecting opportunities.

As Rod pointed out, you can pick and choose which pages you want to print depending on what stamps you want to mount. The other thing I have admired about Rod's collection is that he has other interesting and pertinent information in his album along with his stamps - I like that approach, especially since I am enjoying the post cards too. I am thinking that I will have stuff other than just stamps in the album, and that will take designing custom pages in a consistent way with the other pages in the album so they all mesh together nicely.

And lastly, Rod asked:


OMG - it will take me forever to get used to these - unfortunately I have been unable to work on my stamps since I went down to the SF bay area and picked up loads of stuff from one of the people I
sell for on ebay - he is the one who gave me all the old post cards to sell, and I have more boxes of all kind of stuff I have to get on to liquidating by putting the stuff up for sale. He has a lot of "paper" he wants me to move for him, it is something I do enjoy doing but it keeps me away from doing what I would rather be doing with the stamps. I have the stamps all organized by country, they need to go somewhere now, like an album which is why I am working on figuring this out so I will have a direction.

As for the tweezers, I love the pointy ones, they do pick up some amazing things. I have been practicing on objects other than stamps, and some stamps too, I keep them right next to my keyboard on my desk

OK, thank you for all the great feedback, thanks to everyone that posted something about this - I am so appreciative of your opinions and input, I do admire you guys - for some reason I think you are all rather intelligent and I like that. Julie

Julie

Hello. The standard practice in the UK is to place stamps in an album in order of issue. Air-mail stamps and charity stamps are not separated from other issues. The Scott method means that stamps from the same set are often separated by tens or scores of pages in an album because of an arbitrary decision that postage, air-mail and charity issues should be separate.

"Back of book" here means postage due and official stamps and one or two other minor categories. This is, I think, also the practice followed in Germany. Some European catalogues and/or album makers, eg Yvert and Davo, separate air-mail issues, with the same negative effects as Scott. None, I think, separates charity stamps.

Regards.

Geoff

First red arrow = All your normal Polish Postage Stamps.

Second red arrow = "Back of Book" = all the issues that differ from the normal daily use postage stamps, all the oddities if you will.

Thank you to both Rod22 and GeoffHa for explaining to me about the Scott numbers and the what the "Back of the Book" means. I have never really seen an actual stamp collection that belonged to a serious philatelist - except my son does have a very nice collection from his grandmother organized into albums. This is why I am thinking I had best go with the Steiner pages, there is so much I don't know about the stamps still, it will take me years, the rest of my life, to figure all this philatelic stuff out, and I am sure there is no understanding everything that there is to know.

Thanks so much Rod for illustrating the back of the book - it really made it easier for me to understand by looking at a section of the Scott. I also like the way you use the scanner to illustrate things - although I guess I have the same or similar scanner I am not as proficient at using it as you are.

And Geoff, you opened my eyes when you explained about the way Scott breaks "special" stamps out and puts them in sections like airmail etc. I was envisioning going through my stamps and building album pages based on date of issue (by following the layout of the Scott catalog which I was thinking would be organized out by date of issue - I was not thinking about the "back of the book" aspect of it all) but I can see that would be a very risky thing for me to do, there are things for sure that I do not know and have not accounted for that will come and bite me in the tush for sure if I try to design an album for my collection on my own This is why I am leaning toward the Steiner pages, at least outstanding issues or problems are a known quantity for the most part.

Thanks to you both for responding to my post, Julie

Yes, of course, I should have mentioned that as an option many Steiner users follow. It can get a bit confusing printing off pages piecemeal if you don't number the pages somehow as Rod suggested.

Steiner also has a good number of blank/quadrille pages that can be labeled with titles that you can add anything that is not a major Scott number, like varieties, pairs, blocks, etc. and covers.

I do think that it makes a lot of sense that your album follows the catalog you are using. And in the U.S. that's Scott.

Also, some people just 3-hole punch the pages and put into a 3-ring binder and others slip the pages back-to-back into page protectors that then go into a 3-ring binder. There are pros and cons to each approach that I won't go into here.

Chris

I am with Geoff here, it seems to me that the most logical way of ordering an album is by date of issue.
I completely fail to see the rationale for placing some postage stamps in a separate category when their primary primary purpose is to convey mail.
Just because someone at Scott many years ago decided that airmails are BOB and should be in a separate category is no reason for continuing this anachronistic practice. When I create albums for my personal use, even those in accordance with Scott numbers, I still order the pages by date of issue.



Remember your albums are your own, despite what I wrote above there are no right and wrong ways of organising your album, you need to do what works for you. That being said, creating your own albums is no trivial task, Steiner offers an easy and affordable way of producing something practical, especially for North American collectors who tend to follow Scott.
Less so though for collectors of British Commonwealth material where Scott, and thus Steiner, omit some fairly significant varieties. In which case I base my albums on Stanley Gibbons or country specific catalogues.

Clive

Clive,

I agree with you that there is no right or wrong way of organizing your album. When I started collecting 43 years ago, I was often disappointed to find stamps that didn't have a space in my album and it took a long time before I decided to change things up and do it my way. I'm with you in that there are some anachronistic practices when it comes to albums.

I've designed and printed my own pages for more than 15 years as I like to collect different varieties that are not often included in the "Scott way". I also use different colored cardstock for how I have my collection categorized by date of issue, which I find make it easier to find what I'm looking for in each album. Beige for definitives, green for commemoratives, blue for airmail, gray for special delivery, orange for postage dues, etc. I find it so much easier, for example, to find U.S. 1922-25 definitives to search for the beige pages sandwiched between green commemoratives issued before and after that series.

My plate number coil collection, on the other hand, is completely separated from the rest of my U.S. collection. Those are a horse of a different color...although they still have colored pages as well.

Scott

For what it's worth, Japanese (and Korean, if I'm recalling correctly) catalogs make even greater distinctions of stamp classifications.

Off the top of my head, Sakura and the JSCA Japan Specialized break out:

-- definitives
-- commemoratives
-- airmail
-- new year's
-- national parks
-- prefecturals (Scott lists these as "Z" stamps)

I grew up collecting US and some modest worldwide (school boy's budget), but I've always been ok with the Scott separation of service types.

To me, the biggest challenge with it is with countries that issued sets of stamps where some are regular stamps and some are airmail. I don't like seeing those sets split up in an album. (Although Scott usually cross-references them in the catalog.)

Otherwise, I like seeing all the airmails together, all the special delivery, etc.