Gibraltar, at first you wrote that the page was numbered PB (letters), then you wrote it was numbered P8 (a letter and a number), so I'm confused. Davo has a page numbering system which seems a little odd to me at times.
My approach to the issue of their Air Mail and other pages being grouped together at the end of the album, a practice that has never made any sense to me, is to simply move them to where they would otherwise go. It isn't always perfect. Sometimes stamps from different years are on the same page. If so, I put the page with the later year, not the earlier one. I do this with Scott albums, too, since they also have the unfortunate policy of separating Air Mails and Semi-Postals from other stamps. It's a silly practice since stamps issued in one era all belong together to reflect the same issues, topics, and stamp designs. In my opinion, anyway.
As for Davo albums, they're very good. I own about 70 volumes of them -- which is a bit nuts. I actually prefer Scott albums for a number of reasons (less expensive is one, cheaper supplements, and so forth, while Scott page layouts appeal to me, and the cream-colored paper is pleasing to look at). I may sell off my Davo binders and pages since I don't use them much. Scott albums are good looking, less expensive, can be put into either 2-post binders or 3-ring binders (the smaller 3-ring binder is pretty good looking while the larger ring binder is truly awful, I think, like a warehouse invoice storage binder), and the supplements are cheap. Scott sells an Israel album. Not sure how many album makers sell one.
I like that Davo albums don't cost the absurdly high prices charged for Lighthouse and other European albums. But they aren't cheap, either. Dealers often point out that on resale of many collections they buy, the album is worth more than the stamps in it! That's a bit nuts. And Davo albums cost much more than Scott albums by a wide margin.
I like the look of LH and Schaubek pages, but Davo pages are just about as good. The paper in Davo albums is a bit too bright white for my taste. The two-post design means the pages bend, but it's the same with all the Scott albums I have (I don't use ring binders) so it doesn't bother me. It's a little annoying, though. I do prefer multi-ring binders because they lay flat, but I currently don't use any. Davo Netherlands is a company that is very easy to deal with and easy to order from. I've ordered from them, and it's simple to do. And the slipcase is free! Try that with the other brands of albums.
I dislike Lindner (and Safe) albums. They use what I consider a very unnecessary page system with plastic overlays on top of paper pages. This is so you can easily see the back of all your stamps. Since I never look at the back of my stamps after they're in my album, I have no idea why this makes any sense. But to each their own. What it does do is make these albums very much more expensive than they need to be and very much heavier (all that plastic!) than they ought to be.
There are also KABE albums from Germany, though they're not common, and Marini albums from Italy which have wonderful page designs and use either ring binders or post binders. Also Yvert albums in France has some albums, too. Some pf Yvert's are made by Marini, in fact. All are a little harder to find, but might be worth looking at. Marini uses a very nice 22-ring binder that lays the pages flat so they're easy to use. Page designs are very handsome. Buying from Marini's website isn't hard, but you'll need to use 'Google Translate' to figure out the meaning of terms since they don't have an English-language option like Davo does. I've ordered from them, and it works pretty well.
As for Palo albums, they are very good looking, but . . . they use their own proprietary 6-ring binders for some reason, seem to prefer selling you pages in full color (though you can request black and white pages) which seems really strange to me. I understand color pages in catalogues which makes finding stamps much easier. In an album with color images, you can't tell the stamps from the illustrations. Truly an odd practice. And Palo albums are basically upsized Steiner pages. They bought Steiner's page layouts (which are nearly free to Steiner subscribers), made a few changes (different type font, border, etc.) and sell them at enormous prices. A Steiner album you make yourself might cost maybe $100 for an entire country including heavy paper and nice binders while a Palo Album using the same page layouts but on larger paper using their binders (which you have to use because of the dopey 6-hole punch) might cost upwards of $1000 for some countries, even more for others. I don't get it. I've priced a few Palo albums, and fallen off my chair at their prices which are the equivalent of Lighthouse and Schaubek and Davo prices. So I don't see any advantage with them. If they were cheaper, I'd like them.
Or a cheap way is to make your own album. Either use blank or quadrille pages and lay out the stamps the way you prefer which is what collectors have done for generations. You can then label pages and identify stamps the way you prefer. A handmade album is very personal and is my favorite type of album.
Or do what I sometimes do which is to print Steiner page layouts on larger-sized paper, either onto all-blank paper and including printing the Steiner border, or with the blank page's existing border (such as Scott bordered blank pages) by covering up the Steiner border. Easy enough to do. By printing I mean that I photocopy (xerox) the pages. I can also buy Scott-sized blank paper or have the pages preprinted for me from albumpages(dot) net.
By xeroxing, I can print onto larger sized paper easily. The result looks identical to any other album page that has been "printed," whatever that may mean. Buying from albumpages, the pages come with holes already punched for either two square posts for Scott binders or three rings for whatever binder you wish, including Scott. The price is fabulously inexpensive. You can produce a good looking album for any country on large pages using Steiner page layouts to fit whatever binder you want (if you can get the holes punched, of course), and you can do so for far less than buying a preprinted album.
I've even hole punched some of these Steiner layout pages to fit 22-ring Marini binders I have, though I had to find and purchase a 22-hole punch to do it. They look really good. No chance of hingeless pages (with mounts already attached) this way, though.
Really, you just have to get hold of the various pages from these albums and live and play with them for awhile (or buy used albums) until you decide one suits you better. |
Posted 08/19/2019 11:13 am
