2 Volume 1840-1940 British Colony Collection On Vintage Pages

https://www.ebay.com/itm/163272935530

There's a bit of a story to this item. I've been thinking about starting to collect again for quite a while and when I saw this on ebay I pounced:





After a couple questions to the seller I determined this collection was on the nice Scott Vintage pages and with 30,000 stamps thrown in this purchase was a no brainer.


I'm not certain there actually are 30,000 stamps but there was good coverage in many areas and the pages were very clean with a few pencil marks and hinge remnants. I had decided to take the pages for the countries I wanted to collect and sell the rest. My idea was that I could get a nice comprehensive France and colonies collection in a compact package. This proved correct and my France/colonies collection is in one binder and my total collection for all the countries I want is contained in 4 binders. Actually I was going to collect GB and colonies but in another topic folks mentioned difficulties completing such a collection so I decided to sell it.

I think using the Vintage pages for specific areas instead of the Specialized albums is a good idea but I'd like to hear what others think. Check out my other auctions too!

I use the vintage pages, since I got them, for all pre 1940 stamps

Curious question on the 2 albums you are selling. It appears crystal mounts were used. Would that be correct?

Thanks

There are some Crystal mounts and some showguard but mostly hinges.

Nice. Sad to see another Empire/Commonwealth collection that won't find a home in the Commonwealth. Would you consider international shipping without the binders?

Sure but it will be expensive.

I'd imagine $80-90, which is high, but it might be worth a look :)

I appreciate that the pages, rather than the stamps, were the basic attraction, but I think you made the right call on not using the GB/Empire pages. For the GB, some basic stuff is there, but the more expensive material isn't, and the pages themselves need some cleaning up, mount removal etc.

I agree. If I were to buy these, the pages would be binned I'm afraid!

Do you use an Imperial album, jubilee? I have a modern reprint, with many rather empty pages! The French Colonial stuff, for which I use MOC pages, tends to be a lot more affordable, as Ken mentioned.

No, I only collect KGV 1910-36, and tend to custom make my pages. However, I am saving for the Stanley Gibbons 6 Volume KGV album. I have a friend that is slowly filling an Imperial with MH stamps. It's gorgeous

If you don't want the pages I would advise you not to buy this collection, as mentioned the stamps aren't that strong.

I never use black mounts, if you move a stamp it looks awful. Empty clear mounts aren't nearly as bad (IMO).


Does anyone know if you can get bland pages to match the Vintage pages?

Yes, there are Vintage Reproduction blank pages -- with the fancier border. Remember this is not a Scott/Amos product, so they don't sell either these pages or the blanks. Subway Stamp Shop is the seller of all VR pages, and they're the ones that sell the blank pages. See their website. I sometimes buy VR blank pages to use as blanks in my regular Scott International album to satisfy my fancier taste in pages than Scott's normal International pages provide.

So, you've pulled out all the France and Colonies VR pages from these volumes? That's pretty clever. The main question would seem to be whether or not the VR pages are comprehensive, the equivalent of the Scott Specialty album pages for the same countries? I don't think the layouts are the same.

Subway used the older Scott International pages as their template for reprinting the VR pages. Since those older pages were comprehensive, Scott themselves turned them into their Specialty series beginning "around" the 1940s (not sure). That suggests pretty strongly the the Subway reprinting of those pages (the VR pages you have) would be comprehensive.

On the other hand, the VR pages are more compact in size which I think means more stamps per page. So were some stamps omitted to fit the smaller size pages? The pages are smaller in size than Specialty album pages, so you might think they were edited to fit that smaller page. But Subway was just reprinting what Scott had abandoned decades earlier (with Scott's permission, of course). Why would they reorganize those pages with all the time and expense that would require? You'd have to look at a page-by-page comparison for some countries to be sure.

But what I think you'd find is that those older Scott worldwide pages -- that later became the Specialty album pages, the current VR pages (whew!) -- were originally designed with more stamps per page -- and it was Scott themselves that redesigned the pages when they began producing their Specialty albums. So you will have more compact, more full, pages but most likely they contain the same stamps as the Specialty albums do for each country. Again, comparing Specialty to VR pages would be the best way to be sure what's what, but I'm pretty confident that's the case.

That means, I think, that a collection of any country on VR pages will be more compact since it's on smaller-sized pages with more stamps per pages, but include spaces for all 1840-1940 stamps. The problem is if you decide to continue that country beyond 1940, you'll have to use the larger Specialty album pages in a different binder. So they won't match, if that's a problem.

Are you selling just the British area pages from these albums or selling all the remaining pages? I'd guess this is on ebay.

I broke the WW collection down and I kept France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece an all their colonies and affiliates. I also kept many small countries like Danzig, Memel, Danish W Indies. The remainder I separated into countries that had enough stamps to sell on ebay and those that were too "thin" to bother with. I kept the thin pages/countries and if I decide to expand my collecting scope I will have them.


Vintage pages have 1 drawback that I should mention. From experience I am convinced that if you had the same # of stamps on Scott International pages and on Vintage pages the International pages will sell for considerably more. People just like well filled pages and bid higher the Vintage pages often look sparse and don't sell for good prices. If you are building a collection for resale International pages with extra pages inserted is probably the way to go.


As for the comparison between Vintage and Specialized coverage I wonder about that my self. I have some British Colony Specialized collections and I will analyse a couple countires and count pages and spaces and report my results in the "Books & Reference" area.

I like the Vintage pages, they are very "classical" in appearance.

However....

Not a major disqualifying issue, but a large minor issue with Vintage pages is the spaces are frozen in the presentation of the Scott 1900-1940 catalogues, when the pages were formatted.

Since then, Scott has added catalogue numbers, dropped catalogue numbers, rearranged catalogue numbers, and changed color descriptions.

The Steiner pages follow the modern Scott catalogue almost exactly, and hence easy to identify the Steiner space with the Scott catalogue.

With the Vintage pages, one will be jumping around (and interpreting in some cases) with the modern Scott catalogue.

As said, not a major disqualifying issue, but more work.

I suspect you are correct. Many collectors may not be aware (or choose to ignore) that a full Big Blue page (wonderful to look at!) will have empty spaces with a specialized, Vintage, or Steiner page.

As you said, which will appear more attractive?

I've added 300-400 stamps to the collection and I think it's pretty easy to work with, I had trouble with a couple stamps but most fit right into their spaces.

The Steiner pages are great. About 18 years ago I built a 19th C WW collection with Steiner pages. I printed them on Scott Specialized blanks. At the time I had access to a hi end laser printer at work, but it still took a lot of time and space. I liked the idea of buying the used Vintage collection because I thought it would be more compact and I really liked the idea that someone else had done the work of mounting all the "easy" stamps. I've done the "easy" ones several times and I wanted a collection I could build on.

I've been looking for a bulk lot of clear mounts and I will probably move all the stamps in my collection into clear mounts over time. I like mounts because it's so easy to upgrade my collection as I find better examples.