Album Care Question:

The bottom portion of the pages of my Scott Minuteman and H.E. Harris Statesman albums are starting to curve. I used to think it was due to the fact that I placed stamps starting from the tops of new pages and worked my way to the bottom, such that the tops of the albums were thicker and the bottoms thinner, and this still may be a factor, but am now starting to think it's just gravity doing its dirty work to my albums. I know that these pages are thinner than more expensive albums pages, which is also a factor.

Pictured are the 1st volume of my Minuteman album (left) and the 2nd volume of my Statesman album (right). How do others prevent this from happening or correct it once it's started. I've considered storing my albums upside down for a while to see if that helps. I know I don't want to store them horizontally. I welcome any experience or advice.

I've stored my group of International albums in drawers of a legal file cabinet, spine up. I'm sure it puts stress on the binder spine and mechanism holding the pages, but the pages have not curled and I've not experience any pages tearing at the holes. Obviously not a typical solution that anyone might be able to use, but its worked for me.

Disclaimer - I don't get into the albums all that often, so it's not inconvenient for me to not have them immediately accessible.

Moscophorus - can I ask, if your albums are on a conventional shelf, have you ever felt the back wall, to see if there is any warmth from pipes, radiators, etc?

I have noticed some curling of pages in my albums, and realised the back wall gets slightly warm from the radiator on the other side of the wall. I don't know for sure if that's a factor, but I'd be interested to know if you have the same situation.

Ringo - no, nothing there. Albums are on a bookshelf that's not quite touching the wall between my Family Room (where the albums are) and a Storage/Mud Room. No pipes or anything in or on either wall. Good thought, though. Thanks!

You have to constantly 'turn' the albums over, allowing the weight of the page to be distributed on both sides (top and bottom). Allowing them to sit for months/years in the same position will cause the weight of the paper and mounts to buckle the pages like that.

FYI, I have managed to correct even after the pages already looked like yours by storing them upside down. It will take a year or two and you still should occasionally flip them.
Don

The spine up idea seems interesting. This way the weight of the page is carried by the binder rings. When the binder is upright, the load is not uniform so pages twist.

What if you could somehow contrive a system whereby the album binder is raised off the floor of the shelf, but there is a drop below the pages. Should they sag, they wouldn't hit the shelf bottom, so no buckling would occur.

This reminds me how they stored magazines and newspapers in libraries.

The page bottoms of the Statesman album are flush with the binder bottom. The buckling is from the weight of the stamps and pages pulling down and away from the spine. The Minuteman is almost flush with less than 1/8th inch difference, so there is extra play there. If I had a legal file cabinet I might consider the edge down approach (or wider shelving). For the moment I think I'll be turning my world upside down.

You can also use a slightly larger binder that will keep the pages from touching the shelf or extending beyond the cover edges. And of course you can also place the binder with spine up and allow pages to hang. That is similar as what was done with many paper files in recent past.

It is especially easy to do with springback binders without worry of the weight of pages hanging on 3 small rings. And that is why even the 3 ring card stamp album pages are worth the extra expense.

A lot of guessing here. I have high quality albums, mostly Scott Nationals, Scott Specialty, and Scott International albums plus some Lighthouse and other albums. Some of them have been sitting on bookshelves for decades, and not one of them does this. I was given my National album when I was 16 which was 55 years ago. It has been on my bookshelves all that time. Te 55-year-old pages are all straight as new. No curving or sagging at all.

Clearly your pages or perhaps the entire album is the problem. You noted that the pages are thin, and that would appear to be the main issue. Thin pages naturally curl and sag. It's one reason manufacturers of higher quality albums use heavier paper.

My albums also do not have the pages touching the bottom as yours may be doing. The album covers are larger than the pages, so the pages don't touch the bookshelf (or dust case).

The posts used in my Scott Specialty albums are rectangular and that may hold the pages better. But the posts in some other albums are round, so who knows? None of these albums has sagging pages like yours. I think it's a result of paper that is too thin, pages which are as large as the binder covers so they sit right on the bookshelf, and perhaps other factors (humidity?). Where I've seen this before it's always with less expensive albums with thin paper and so on.

If I were you, I'd get rid of those things and move to albums with heavier pages. I couldn't stand to see my collection like that. But first you might first try the suggestion of turning them upside down on your bookshelf and letting them sit that way for many months to see if the pages relax and lose their curve. Or even lay them down.

The idea of letting pages hang from the rings or posts worries me a little as the weight seems likely to pull at the holes and elongate them, maybe tearing them. Pages in a normal position are held in place at least partly by the covers, and I'm not sure that would be the case if they were hanging. But I suppose you could try it. . . ? On the other hand, if the right side page edges touched the bookshelf in that position, you'd just end up with the outer edge of the pages curling.

Thanks for the continued advice. My quality collections (US mint, Greece, Nepal, etc.) are in quality albums with thicker papers, in some cases card stock even. I use the Minuteman for my US used and the Statesman for my general WW. I may someday upgrade, but the thought of moving thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of stamps is too daunting for the moment.

I have seen this curling of the pages in some heavily used albums that I have purchased recently -- even those with heavier stock paper. In these cases it was the binder itself that was damaged -- allowing the spine to tilt inwardly at the top and not stay standing vertically. This, in turn, allowed the outer edge of the pages to rest on the shelf while the inner edge of the pages was still support above the shelf by the spine. The outer edge of the pages themselves had to help support their own weight -- thus leading to the curling. Are your spines still standing vertically? (Higher-end binders seem to be better made and less prone to this breakdown of the spine relative to the album covers -- Minkus albums are very prone to this, though I have also seen it with Harris albums as their plastic starts to split.)

Slip/Dust cases help support the cheaper binders.