Interleaving - Any Ideas Or Tips To Avoid Spending A Fortune?

This might be a bit optimistic, but I'm hoping someone might have an idea on this.

The back story: I decided to do something with my accumulation of 'unwanted' worldwide stamps. So I ordered a Harris pre-printed album from the States, which I'm waiting to arrive. Big fat album - lots of pages.

I would like to put interleaving in, but the problem is the cost. On ebay, ordering Harris interleaving costs £33 for 100 sheets shipped to UK. (About $43.)

I would need more than one batch - maybe three or four.

Does anybody have any good ideas for alternatives - I thought maybe buying up cheap, tatty old albums and removing from there. Or are there any bargain suppliers in the UK?

I'd appreciate any help.

Gibbons' is around £11 per 100 for interleaving fitting the standard UK pages. You could punch it to fit the Harris album, assuming it's a peg album.

Back in the good old days, collectors would often purchase rolls of waxed paper and trim to the size they wanted and punch the holes themselves.

Depending on where you live there may be a "Paper Store" where you can purchase a wide variety of items.

Locally we have a store called "Papers Plus", they may have one in you area.

Thanks for the ideas. I never considered going for a different brand. Until I have the Harris album in my hand, I don't know for sure what size the pages are.

So far as I can tell, Harris is exclusively a US product. It is a peg fitting album, so if there is a UK equivalent, that would be helpful and I may be able to punch holes, as suggested. An important factor will be width of the page - interleaving which is too narrow can snag stamps near the edges of the page.

Not sure about cutting whole pages from larger sheets - but I'll bear it in mind.

Ringo: my experience from buying "cheap, old, tatty" albums, when I was still buying collections, is that the interleaving was equally tatty. All the interleaving sheets went directly to my paper recycling stacks.

It might be helpful to identify which Harris album you're buying and to note if it's 2-post or otherwise.

In any case, here's a U.S. supplier who sells 100 clear (not glassine) sheets of interleaving for what looks like a Harris two-post album for $14.80 which would be "about" £11. Shipping would not be cheap, however.
http://www.subwaystamp.com/searchprods.asp

And another U.S. supplier of glassine interleaving for a Harris album for a slightly lower price.
https://www.wizardcoinsupply.com/g-...-albums.html

The two UK suppliers I've dealt with (and liked very much) are Prinz Publications and Dauwalders Stamp Shop (Salisbury). Both have good websites worth browsing. I'd give them a look and perhaps contact them if you don't find what you want. If no one in the UK can help you, particularly since you're not ordering thousands of pages, it might be worth biting the bullet and ordering from the U.S. even with higher shipping costs. I'd do that to get proper pages -- before cutting my own interleaving. The only alternative I can think of would be to talk to a print shop and see if they might be able to make such pages in the size you want with holes punched. Still, it's likely to be cheaper and a lot easier just to order from whatever supplier of Harris interleaving you can find. Good luck.

I think DrewM has a good point about buying and cutting down larger pieces.

For creating end papers for Bibles, we buy the laminated paper on large rolls, and then cut it into manageable sheets. It is much, much cheaper that buying the pre-cut sheets.

Thanks for the advice, all.

It's a Harris Senior Statesman. Two pegs.

I have a Harris Traveller I can measure, but I'm not sure the page sizes are the same as the Senior Statesman. (Does anyone know?)

I guess the tatty old album idea is a bad one.

I'd imagine the peg distance would be the same for both albums . . . ?

My intention was to suggest NOT cutting your own interleaving as I'd imagine that would be difficult and result in different size sheets and a lot of mess. But each to their own. If interleaving is available in the correct sizes with holes already punched (something else you'd need to do) I'd just buy it. For 300-400 sheets, which is what you thought you'd need, you'd spend U.S. $50 or less -- plus shipping. I'd guess $20 for shipping, but I have no idea. So maybe $70 (£50) total? A one-time purchase, too. So not too bad. Check UK sources first, of course.

Have fun.