Your First Stamp Album

I received my first stamp album probably when I was about 5 or 6. I lived in England at the time (born there, emigrated to the US when I was 8)and, along with two of my older brothers started collecting stamps. I acquired them mostly from letters we received and a few cheap packets. I'd forgotten what the album looked like until I saw a few on ebay recently. It was called the Special Agent album, and from what I could glean from images posted on the site it was about 64 pages, was available in either spiral-bound or stapled, and was published in Wales. I eventually outgrew it and got a bigger album when I was abut 9 or 10. Not surprising that I outgrew it because many of the pages which had small rectangular spaces, arranged in 8 rows of 7, had as many as 7 or 8 countries per page. A far cry from my Great Britain collection (i.e. one country) which currently is up to 7 volumes! I love the cover which has a stern guy in an open car driving from Rhyl (a town in North Wales) to London. When I had the album I probably had no idea where Rhyl was, and many years later I actually drove through there. I read that John Lennon's first album recently went up for auction, the collection was very much what you would expect from a British school boy of the time. Any other members care to tell us about their first album?

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It was a Scott Minuteman, purchased in 1978. The binder wore out and split so I trashed it, but I still have the pages and the stamps, although I've merged them with a 2012 Minuteman and consider it my secondary collection. I expect to sell it within a year or two.

I never had a printed album. Having seen my grandad's 'proper' Stanley Gibbons albums, I decided I wanted to start with a loose-leaf, which on a schoolboy budget meant A4 graph paper (A4 being similar to 8" x 10") and a two-ring binder.

I ended up with about four of them, all with different types of graph paper, depending what was going cheap at the time, and all in the same type of binder but different colours.

Mine was a Scott Master Canada with the Mountie on the cover, up to 1979. Recently I purchased a copy of this album and have been filling it with used stamps on hinges. Lots of fun.

I received my mothers old Hong Kong book, around an A5 size. Nice and green, with gold embossing.

She kept a lot of old European notes they received while living in SE Asia. She also kept super delicate paper cut outs from the area, which ended up in a seperate book. It had a thick wad of 1c Hong Kong notes in it too from all her new years celebrations lol

My first was a cloth bound 1937 album given to me by a neighbor. A John Nickle if I recall, black cloth with red stamped lettering. Her childhood album, it was already 30 years old when I received it. Followed with worldwide Harris "Traveler" and later a Whitman "Voyager" I received for Christmas a couple of years later.

A received a Harris Ambassador album for my birthday when I was 12 (1974). About a year later I won a U.S. album for a magazine sale at school. Don't remember the name of the album, but it was bound, so I couldn't add any pages to it. It came with a few stamps, hinges, and a perf gauge that I still have. Eventually, I focused on U.S. stamps, got myself a Harris Liberty album, and the Ambassador album fell apart and the stamps were salvaged from it. Still have those WW stamps in an album of my own creation.

Mine was a Frontiersman published by Whitman. It was bought for me in about 1968. It was hardbound and US only. On the cover was a beautiful scene of a river, forest and large mountain under white fluffy clouds and blue sky. The interior had a intro to stamp collecting and I still remember learning how to hinge stamps from this. I still have it.

My brother, who is 2 years older than me, both got albums around 1970. Mine was and Ambassador and his was a Traveler. Both by Harris, if memory serves me. He lost interest in a couple years and gave his stuff to me. Not long after that I got my first US only album....a Minuteman,from Scott. I dont have any of those albums today, but still have fond memories of those first few years.

Mine was a Whitman Voyager Album. Got it for Xmas around 1969. My cousin was a collector - he suggested to my mom that I should try out stamp collecting. The rest is history. First stamp I put in it was a 6c FDR from the prominent american series - just licked it and put it in! Didn't know about hinges yet. Moved from this to a Harris Statesman, then just US (Liberty) and Canada in Harris Albums. Now I use a Minkus Comprehensive for Foreign and Scott National and Canada Specialized.

cjpalermo1964 - I experienced a similar entry into the hobby as did you, only in reverse. I was born in The States, and at roughly the same age, received a 'Trans-World' stamp album for Christmas. My father, at the time was the manager of the Plaza Hotel in NYC, so you can imagine the piles of stamps on paper he was able to bring home and supply me with. He got his manager-buddies from within the same company (Hotel Corporation of America) around the world involved and these along with my relatives who got letters from the 'old country,' kept me near the bathtub almost daily in stamp-soaking heaven. That album still sits on my shelves in my stamp den (or 'lair,' as my better half refers to it).

My Dad got transferred to London to be the General Manager of the Carlton Tower Hotel when I was about 11 years old. There, I bought myself an SG Windsor GB album and a Scott US National on the same day, soon after we had settled into our flat, and my lifelong hobby really took off. Six years later we moved back to NY. I still have these albums as well.

Stamp value aside, the nostalgia and memories these albums afford, make them absolutely priceless.

Great topic - two albums for me.

First was a Harris Canada - green with a maple leaf on the cover. My Dad got that for me as a present after I'd filled up a bunch of his mini-stockbooks with Canada. I was 8 or 9, and he wanted the stockbooks back for his Germany stuff!

Soon after, my Grandma gave me a beautiful old Scott International Junior from 1939, that was my grandfathers before he passed away. With about 3,000 stamps at the time. I filled it up a bit more before I lost interest in collecting around 13.

I still have both and are in good shape - they sat in my parent's attic for 35 years until I got back into collecting last year. When I received everything from all sides of the family, as well as my old stuff. The Harris Canada is my Canada seconds album now (primary is in Lighthouse). The IPSA Junior is for classic worldwide seconds (or thirds, for some countries). The Harris album now feels cheap (and it is compared to something like Lighthouse/Palo), but I'll never get rid of it - too much nostalgia.

My first album was an HE Harris softcover beginners US Collection, maybe 25 double sided pages. I received an HE Harris Ambassador Album from 'Santa' that Christmas. This I used for many years (still have it, with the stamps, but stopped actively collecting for 5-10 years (until after I was married). I do not now have a prominent name album, but collect US w/FDCs into 3-ring binders on 60# stock, in mounts, w/archival page protectors (30+binders). I also collect the USPS annual Yearbook going back to 1980 (just received my 2018 issue). When I take a moment to look though my collection it takes me a couple of days. (I also use PCS for US Commemorative cache FDCs, but that's going to end soon, going from 1976-present 20 PCS albums. I had used their back issue service for a few years but that got real expensive for issues I found at the $1-$5 table ). I guess I'll be collecting up until the 2026 Boston Show, then I may give some serious thought as to the next step.

I also had the Harris paperback album. It was called The Adventurer album and featured the tag line, "Around the World with Postage Stamps". This was around 1961.

I can recall many hours of fun hinging stamps in my Majestic album back in the 50's!

Mine was an old Imperial, which I got from my father who started working on it probably in the late 1930's.