Album Advice- Hingeless?

I'm thinking I want to switch to hingeless album. The gold standard seems to be "Lindnor", but big bucks. I have a nice Scott album. I'm wondering, is it possible to buy plastic pages that fit over the pages of my Scott album? Thanks in advance for your insight.

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Clear Vario-style pages would likely not align with the Scott album pages. For the U.S. collector, many people like the Mystic pages as a "bargain priced" entry level hingeless album.

I personally like Palo, since everything is in Scott order.

Lindner/Safe IMO are the best style of pages (clear sheet in front of printed page, allowing for storage of additional singles and viewing the back of the stamps), but as you say, not cheap. Also not in Scott order.

Lindner and Safe also enable you to mount the used copy on the page, with the mint copy above in the plastic T-bar, if that appeals to you. Perhaps look around auctions for collections mounted in Lindner and Safe albums, as the expensive album becomes a cheap accessory to the stamps at this point. These things depreciate faster than sports cars. In that case, also check whether the Lindner album is the T-bar type or the older version, which is fiddly and doesn't separate the plastic from the page.

I bought my Lindner at auction, 7 U.S albums and 4 Canadian all with used stamps for $350.00 Cdn. Sold all the stamps for $200.00 Cdn. and put my U.S and Canadian MNH in the albums. It took me about 6 months to find the right auction and I am very pleased with the albums,they really are the gold standard.

I try to do the same with the MOC pages for French Colonies, which are unpleasantly expensive if bought new from Lighthouse. Trouble is that they show up less often than Lindners!

I can't believe how many people put cheap stamps and heavy hinged stamps in expensive albums and binders. For years before ebay came along all those nice European binders and pages would end up in the trash after a big collection auction . Those type of high quality pages and binders are found in bulk lots and end of auction junk lots mostly filled with stamps that value less than the binders .

Anyone considering picking up used Lindner albums needs to be aware that those manufactured before the mid 80's often are found with wrinkling/rippling on the plastic portion. It apparently was corrected after users complained. You can see this in pictures on listings for them on ebay.

I like the Lighthouse style, but eyeing the Palo as well, just to compare. Both expensive options of course. I like seeing my stamps as nicely presented as possible, regardless of their value. So doesn't bother me if the stamps aren't valuable in a nice album. More interested in the design of a classic stamp, then its rarity. To each their own...

If you're looking for the most economical way to obtain the nice hingeless albums, you can often get them in country collections bought at auction. In fact, it isn't unusual to pay less for the lot (album and stamps) than you would for the new hingeless album alone -- they're that expensive new. Sometimes, as floortrader indicates, they are included in supply lots or end-of-auction box lots at a very modest price.

Every now and then, you'll find a used hingeless album on ebay for a reasonable price, but usually these get bid up to the point where you're better just going to the stamp auctions.

Thanks! I just wish I could add plastic pages to my Scott album- that would be perfect- I do want to keep Scott numbers in order

Yes, I keep my eyes open for those and recently got a nice West Germany Lighthouse album that way off ebay. But agree they usually get bid up.

There are plastic covers for Scott album pages sold either by Amos Advantage (which is Scott Publishing) or maybe it's Subway Stamp Shop -- both online. These are not the covers you buy at office supply stores which would be too small to fit Scott pages, but larger clear plastic covers designed for Scott album pages.

As for the "gold standard" in stamp albums, you're going to get some disagreement depending on who you ask. Lindner (with an "e") is a particular type of album that is very different from Lighthouse. Lindner uses clear plastic pages with open strips for holding stamps. The clear pages with the stamps slid into them are backed up by normal-looking album pages with images of stamps on them. Some collectors put a used copy of each stamp on the "normal" page beneath the mint copy in the clear plastic. The whole system, as you can imagine, is pretty elaborate and the resulting weight of each album is something to behold. And because with all these plastic and paper pages, a single volume can't really cover more than a few years, a Lindner album for one country runs to many volumes. I have something like five or six Lindner volumes just for postwar Germany. So your bookshelves are going to be groaning with the weight of the albums and with the many volumes. Compared to a Scott Specialty album, for example, which covers all of postwar Germany in well under a single volume, albums like Lindner are elaborate users of pages and shelf space. SAFE albums are similar.

Also, some of these albums do not cover the entirety of a nation's stamps, concentrating on the postwar era only in some cases. That can be a problem if you're looking to make a general collection. Worth checking on. Publishers like Scott print albums from issue #1 onward.

Lighthouse albums whose pages are especially elegant is often thought of as the top quality album in print today. Lighthouse goes a different route than Lindner, the more normal one of offering albums either with no mounts (you add your own mounts one at a time -- or use stamp hinges) or pages with mounts already attached. In the long run, the latter is more economical even if, in the short run (the purchase price of the pages) the pages with mounts already attached are very, very expensive. You pay a lot now -- or you pay even more over time.

It can get really expensive. A Lighthouse album covering the entirety of a country's stamps from beginning to the present can run upwards of $2000 for popular countries. It's truly astonishing. Hence the popularly of Scott albums which I've always liked.

I use Scott because I like the layout of their pages, the paper they use is very good, and the whole system looks very nice at a small fraction of the cost of the various European-made albums. Price Scott, Lindner, Lighthouse, and Davo albums for the same countries, and Scott will always be the least expensive -- by far. I do buy used Lighthouse and Lindner (and Kabe and Davo and other) albums in auctions and on ebay. That's mainly how I've ended up with many of the more expensive albums that I would never have bought new. As noted by others, you essentially buy the stamps in the album and then get that volume of the album at no extra charge. But finding each volume you'd require for your collection can get frustrating. Keep that in mind.