Your First Stamp Album

Lots of Harris and Scott but no Minkus All Americans? That's what I had. Actually, I still have it. The red paper jacket still looks brand new!

Jack Kelley

My first album was a Harris Ambassador. Had to have gotten it around 1968 or so. I still remember the piles of packet stamps I dutifully placed in their spaces. My parents bought me the album to keep me occupied during a lengthy illness and it fascinated me and made a lot of miserable months more bearable. I fell in love with stamps during that time and never fell out of love. Seperated at times but never divorced. The bookstore where they purchased it is long gone. So unfortunately is that album.

Coronet DELUXE (not the regular old one) World Stamp Album. Got it in the late 50's. My mom told me she went to a stamp store and there were a bunch of old men sitting around smoking cigars. Told me she was going to buy me a Scott album but the old men talked her out of it telling her I wouldn't be able to figure out how to use it. I was pissed. They were wrong. Still have the album.

Mine was a 1973 Scott Minuteman. At one point, I went for several years without buying supplements, so it was cheaper to buy another album to get it up to date, and I needed a second binder anyway. I'm still using the Minuteman for my U.S. collection, but I've expanded it to three volumes with the U.N. section removed. I stopped buying supplements and the stamps to fill them in 2005; if there's a new issue that interests me topically, I'll buy a full pane and put it in a Supersafe Mint Sheet File.

Here's my first Album- a Harris Explorer which I am sure came from the 5 and 10 cent store. It was a gift from my grandmother probably from when I was around 7 or so. I would sit at her kitchen table and sort through stamps she had saved from the mail. She was a great letter writer. I personalized the album with a "Beagle for the Job" campaign sticker probably from the 1972 presidential election. Ans since I apparently have saved almost absolutely everything, also pictured is my first source of worldwide stamps- a HE Harris Orange bag of wonder which, if I remember right, contained a large volume of Machin issues, DDR CTO's and Italian Mercury head definitives. I'm gradually filling all the spaces in this album. It's been a fun project and certainly takes me back to those afternoons spent at grandma's kitchen table.

Come on now everyone, how many actually licked the mint stamps to put into their first album?? (I did!!)

I didn't, but by the time I got my first album, I had my uncle advising me on the use of tongs, hinges, etc.

But before that, I was trimming the perfs off all my stamps, in order to make them look neater!

@jkelley01938

Yes, I remember the red Minkus All-American. That was my brother's first album, and I still have it. In great shape too.

Mine was an HE Harris Adventurer album. I didn't like the hassle of hinges so I remember gluing some stamps in!

I was about 8 years old when I found my aunt's abandoned 1967 H E Harris Statesman - more than a decade gathering dust at my grandparents' home. That became my first de-facto album. For years, I begged and begged for a Harris Citation for Christmas. Family finally got together to buy me this $100 behemoth (a lot of money for a family in Mexico in the mid 80s.) I remember the huge box it came in. My third album was a Harris Canada.

It was 1970, and the album was a Scott Minuteman which has since split at the binding and delaminated on the back cover. I gave it, complete with stamps, to my 18 yr old nephew. Hopefully, it spawns a future collector.

Great topic!

Canyoneer, thanks so much for posting the copy of the Whitman Voyager. It was also my first album and I gave it to somebody years ago and it was really nice getting to see one again!
Ray

My first stamp album was a cheap Harris US album from one of those off-the-shelf stamp collecting kits circa 1980. Came with tongs, a few hundred US stamps, a pack of hinges, the album, and a cheap magnifier (and of course, a catalog of other HE Harris products.)

The start of my worldwide collecting was a packet of 1,000 stamps from (I believe) Kenmore for a couple bucks. The ad claimed "All-Different! All-Genuine!" so I was somewhat puzzled when the packet included some crude modern fakes of scarce Indian Feudatory States issues. Would have been great stamps if genuine -- Duttia #5, e.g. I still have those fake uglies in my reference collection.

What a great topic!

My first was a Harris Ambassador as well. I spent a lot of time in the 1960s filling those spaces as best I could. I made pretty good progress on it. I don't remember thinking to myself that it was lacking spaces for the stamps I could get my hands on - my, how things have changed...

That one album (maybe with some supplements or blank pages?) served me well until around 1973. I was getting ready to go to Army basic training and thought it would be a good idea to get rid of all my stuff ahead of time. So I took my precious album down to George (Stamp Corner, Des Moines, Iowa) and he displayed the collection at his shop on consignment. A couple of weeks later, when I checked with him, I found out it sold for about forty bucks. It was a somewhat sad time, but I was relieved also. I had another worldwide adventure to begin...

John

Around 1960 I received a Majestic album. In a few years I proudly presented my completed US collection to my older brother to dazzle him but was introduced to a Minkus catalog and discovered I was a few stamps short of a complete collection. The Majestic is long gone, but I still enjoy the thrill of collecting stamps as much as I did when I was a kid.