Questions On Steiner Access & Printing

Of course, it is all in how you were raised, what side of the pond you're from, and what you're used to. To me, it's very confusing and frustrating to see airmail, postage due, etc. all interspersed among the regular issues like in a Minkus album, for example.

I prefer to keep them separated, like Scott and Steiner does as they are separate services and/or serve different purposes. And for some countries, I may only want to collect their airmail, semipostals, etc., rather than the entire country.

Chris2015 said:

Thank you Chris! I saw that Rod had suggested that I number the pages as I use them, wasn't really sure why he had suggested that, now I do understand, thank you for clarifying for me. Of course one would have to number the pages in a separate index so that you can keep track of of the pages as they will not follow the sequence they were originally created to follow.

Chris also noted:

I had thought about this, I am thinking that I need to get a 3 hole punch, and I want to make sure to use a nice heavyweight paper. Eventually some clear plastic page protectors with a page on each side will be lovely, but cannot afford to go out there and buy that many of those protectors at once at this time - will be easier for me at some date in the future. Thanks for bringing this up!

Clive said:


I do agree with you and Geoff - this is a rather random thing to have done at the beginning when they started out their numbering system. I had wanted to follow the catalog, was not considering the back of the book (a large oversight on my part) - I think I will probably try to ignore that artificial separation and keep the stamps in order by date of issue, I think it will be more interesting that way. But since the back of the book has been explained to me, I am thinking I will incorporate these sections in with the regular issues and keep the album simple, nice and linear from start to finish, in order by date of issue.




Exactly why I am leaning toward the Steiner solution, I am aware that this will not be a short project or something I will have finished any time soon, I am intending that this will be something I will do until I can't anymore, looking quite forward to it. Thanks for pointing this out.

Thank you to both of you for responding to my post - best to you both, Julie

Hi, this is the OP with an update.............
Looks like the thread generated a lot of back and forth, and frankly that is a good thing.

OK, as of today I'm "in business". I got the ream of Staples crème color cover paper (one day delivery), and bought a very nice heavy duty "large hole" (9/16) adjustable 2 or 3 hole punch off ebay ($22), and just got the Steiner disk this noon.

For what its worth, I'm really impressed. Mr. Steiner's work allows me to print out pages to augment the Scott Albums for those types of stamps "Mr. Scott" deemed not to include.

Have to say, I am a very happy Philatelist this afternoon!!

ENJOY,
Mobilman44
Spring, Tx. USA

OOOOPSSS!

I wrote 9/16 inch for the hole punch and it should be 9/32 inch.

Thank you!

Philatarium,

Yes, I noticed that too.
For the Japanese, this must be a fabulous reference aid.
I find the Japanese stamps so time consuming to identify in the traditional way, mainly eye recognition looking through images.

The provincial and national parks stamps can be a tough journey.

Japanese stamps ARE a bit odd, I agree. They issue an enormous number of localized stamps which are very beautiful but sold only in one region of the country (like our states) called "prefectures" but usable anywhere in Japan. These "prefecturals" are really a very different kind of stamp in their issuance, but entirely normal stamps in the way they look and the way they are used -- for postage. They are postage stamps, not postage dues or official stamps, and they belong more logically in albums with the other stamps issued that year, not separately. In any case, this is a uniquely strange Japanese postal habit not used in any other country I'm aware of except perhaps the UK which issues a very very small number of regional definitives to make the Welsh, Scots, and Northern Irish happy. I'd put the UK regionals with other stamps from that year, as well.

The Japanese collector also apparently tends to separate out national park stamps and others like their New Year Lottery souvenir sheets and so forth. So the Japanese catalogues list these different types of stamps separately. But these are also unique to Japan and certainly out of the norm for most countries which don't do anything like this. An album that contained all of these different types of stamps in separate groups away from other stamps issued at the same time would very quickly get repetitious. Stamps from the 1990s would appear in one section of the album as they do in the catalogue as definitives, then many pages later as commemoratives from the same era, then national parks stamps from that era even later, then prefectural stamps many pages after that even though they're also from the same year. This is very strange.

J. Walter Scott who designed the Scott stamp catalogue separated stamps into types because his first catalogues were sales catalogues, and he wanted to be able to offer his customers the ability to purchase stamps by type -- which mattered at one time. There were even albums for air mails only or commemoratives only. This is no longer a popular way to collect, but we're stuck with these catalogues. European catalogue makers put all postal stamps together, not by separate types, which is more logical.

Imagine an album of U.S. stamps which grouped all definitives together separately from all commemoratives, then another groups of air mail stamps on pages later in the album followed by a groups of semi-postals. Few album makers do this (I think White Ace does) but in doing this the publisher would be ignoring the similar reasons for issuing the different types of stamps as well as their similar designs and styles. Scott does some of this, but it combines definitives and commemoratives together while separating semi-postals and air mails into two more groups. That's a halfway approach, at best. Why not put all souvenir sheets in a separate section? They're not even designed for postal use! What are they doing with the "real" stamps? Why not all put all the modern "sheetlets" of stamps in a separate section? Over the years, the postal service has issued a number of "reprints" (of the first two U.S. stamps, of the Canal Zone bridge stamp, the Dag Hammerskjold stamp, one of the western cowboys stamps, and others). Why are they included with the other stamps? How is that different from semi-postals? And maybe there should be a separate section in albums for "joint issues," stamps issued by the U.S. and other countries. Whew! Clearly, dividing up stamps by types of stamps has no logical end to it.

Dividing up postage stamps into smaller and smaller groups makes about as much sense to me as putting all red stamps on pages separate from all blue stamps. Or maybe it's like putting all small stamps on pages separate from all large stamps. Why not list coil stamps separately from stamps that are fully perfed? Maybe albums should list stamps by perforation types, all 11s on one page, all 12s on another. Now I'm getting really silly.It could get even weirder, but it's already a bit weird as it is. It's just as silly to put the very few U.S. semi-postals on separate pages later in your album. The same for air mails which belong in the eras in which they were issued and used.

It's illogical and unhistorical to separate regular (definitive) stamps from commemorative stamps. That's why almost no album publisher does this. Stamps that are issued and used at the same time belong together because they reflect the same artistic styles of stamp design, are used for the same purpose (mailing something) and reflect the concerns of that particular era. I realize American collectors (and Japanese) are used to their separate groupings which makes them seem "right", but that does not make them logical or useful.

It's particularly strange to look through a stamp album or a catalogue at stamps changing over time for many decades and then have to look at another type of stamps, air mails let's say, about the same topics, in the same designs, and changing in exactly the same way all over again. Separating semi-postal stamps issued at the same time as other commemoratives is particularly silly. But so is separating air mails. In some countries (parts of Central America), air mails are the main types of stamps. Why should stamps used by most people most of the time be relegated to the back of the album?

I can certainly see why postage dues, officials, and other stamps which are not really designed for mail delivery might be listed separately. But I'd do what all other major catalogue makers -- Michel, Yvert, Ceres, Stanley Gibbons, and so on -- have been doing for years, list nearly all stamps issued in each year together.

I use Scott pages (along with a few other brands of albums), and the way I deal with this problem is to move my air mail and semi-postal pages to the eras in which they really belong with definitive and commemorative stamps. That way all stamps from the 1920s that were used for mail purposes are together in my album, and I don't have to keep flipping all over the place to find each group of 1920s stamps at different places in my album. Clearly, I don't collect by type of stamp but by artistic styles and historical purposes of stamps. Collecting by stamp types eliminates from stamp collecting an emphasis on stamp design, artistic style, subject matter, or historical purpose. It substitutes "types" of stamps as the main collecting emphasis. I really don't care much about types of stamps. So I have no problem doing what all other stamp publishers besides Scott do, putting all stamps from each era together in my albums as much as possible.

The most logical method of organizing a catalogue and an album is to list all stamps chronologically irrespective of perforations, colors, size, whether they are coils or not, or whether they are air mails or semi-postals (or prefectural). Stamps that are for postal use belong together in the same year on the same pages. Non-postal stamps which collectors choose to collect like postage dues (used by the postal service but not by people mailing letters), officials, revenues, and so on belong on separate pages. Again, this is the system used by nearly all major catalogue and album publishers. It's Scott that's the oddball in this regard. It's too late to change Scott. J.W.Scott may have made a poor choice many decades ago, but I can move my Scott album pages where they "belong".

You can tell I really care about this! But I feel better now.

Unfortunately, Yvert, in both its catalogues and its albums, also separates air-mail stamps. The Maury catalogues don't.

I suspect that at one time air mails seemed exotic and different, a different kind of mail service, so it may have seemed entirely logical to list them separately. And as I said there were, for a time, separate air mail only stamp albums. Nowadays, air mail is the same for all mail, so separate air mail stamps are disappearing (and have disappeared in the U.S., I believe).

They still served that purpose during the years they were issued. That fact hasn't changed just because they no longer do.

But what about the practice of grouping definitive stamp sets (e.g. US Presidential Issue (1938-54), US Liberty Issue (1954-73))? By the above logic, they would be placed on their individual year-of-issue pages rather than collected together on one or more contiguous pages. While my experience with albums and catalogs other than Scott is limited, I do not believe that I have ever seen definitive stamp sets not grouped together.

And while "...to list all stamps chronologically irrespective of perforations, colors, size, whether they are coils or not, or whether they are air mails or semi-postals (or prefectural)" is a logical organization method, the above example begs the question of it being the "most" logical method (e.g., is it more logical to disperse the Liberty issues across 19 years of catalog and album pages?). Moreover, the division of postal vs non-postal use, while a logical division, is not the only logical division. For example, why only apply the "most logical method" on a country by country basis? Instead, shouldn't stamps be cataloged in chronological order irrespective of country?

All that said, I am a big fan of organizing one's collection to fit one's idiom. Personally, while I use a Scott National album for my US collection, I keep the definitive pages in a binder separate from the commemorative pages. I also have DIY pages in separate binders for used PNCs (organized by issue type, denomination, and Nazar ID #) and precanceled Bureau issues and Town & Type issues (organized per the PSS catalogs). But I do so because it is what I like, not because it is the acme of collection organization.

YMMV.

If one collects varieties there is not often an actual date so just an estimate.

Even if a catalogue numbered by date of issue, I would still prefer to arrange them in an album often by common type (series, same design).

For me, one selling point for Steiner pages is the ease at which I can modify the pages to suit my needs. For example, I don't like to spread definitive series across several pages because the stamps were issued over years. I'll create a new custom page(s) to bring them all together. Here's a small example I recently completed. The U.S. Space Shuttle high value definitives were issued in 1995 and 1998. Steiner has them on two pages separated by quite a few other pages of commemoratives; I consolidated them onto one page, and included a minor variety that doesn't have a space in Steiner.



In some examples of European definitive series, I've completely re-done the Steiner pages based upon the listings in another catalog, such as Facit or Michel.

This is what I prefer. Your experience may be different.

Thanks, Robert

Scott actually announced a few years back that they would no longer try to list stamps from long-running sets together. I am not sure how this has played out in practice, but I do agree that cats like Yvert, Facit, and Michel all list definitives by year of issue. As far as putting them into Vario pages, I personally prefer to put all stamps from the same issue together. So all my Denmark wavy lines for example are together in order by denomination. This issue of course was never listed all together by Scott, even when new values were issued closely in time. They have always been listed by year of issue, along with other definitive types that ran concurrently. So there are exceptions- Scott has never been consistent on definitives. Take a look at KGVI issues of Fiji, Falklands, & Jamaica- some later stamps are forced into "A" numbers (Fiji) while later issues of Jamaica and Falklands are listed in the year of issue. And Fiji is completely inconsistent- despite the use of "A" number for the later 10/- and L1 issues, Scott lists other Fiji definitives from KGVI in the year of issue. What??? Another example of inconsistency by Scott are the 3 Crowns issues of Sweden which have never been listed together.

I also put the typographed French Colonies stamps and numerous other issues together as sets. These super-long sets are sometimes 40 or 50 stamps long and look absolutely spectacular when displayed all together. All of these decisions are easier for me than for others as I only collect definitives, pictorials, officials, dues, and airs (if they are not commemoratives). So there is no need to worry about year sets and order of issuance as I will never want or have everything from a given country.