Minkus / Scott Page Size / Hole Punching

From what I can tell, Minkus pages are 9.5 x 11.25-inch and Scott pages are 9.25 x 11-inch. I have seen collections mixing pages so wondering about binder and hole punching. The album I saw had a 2 bar binder design. I am researching gift ideas.

Being anal about my albums' appearance, if I had to mix these pages, I would trim off the extra quarter inch from the larger pages, 1/8 each from the top and bottom, and 1/4 from the right.

Hi, I measure Minkus as 9 1/2 x 11.5. But I only have a few Scott pages and they differ a bit from each other but I am measuring Scott International at 9 5/16 x 11.5. The Minkus page sticks out a bit.

The trouble will come in the holes. Scott holes are just close enough to Minkus that it will be very hard to punch the Scott pages to fit. Most remnant Scott pages I have seen use one Scott hole, punch another one to match up Minkus and clip a bit off the bottom of the Scott pages.

Bill

MINKUS: 241 x 286 mm (9 1/2 x 11 ¼)

SCOTT International: 235 x 285 mm (9 1/4 x 11 ¼)
SCOTT Specialty & National: 254 x 292 mm (10 x 11 ½)

You don't say, but apparently you're comparing Scott's International (not Specialty) album pages to the Minkus Global album. Your dimensions are correct, both as they are listed on sellers' websites and as I measure them. So the Scott International page is a quarter of an inch narrower than Minkus but almost exactly the same height (off by one millimeter, to be exact!) This suggests they can be combined in the same album, but the hole punching makes that very difficult. For reasons of not being interchangeable, each album company makes sure their hole punching is different from other albums. That way another sellers' (less expensive) printed or blank pages will not fit in your album so "your" customers will have to continue to buy your pages even if your prices go up.

Personally, even if I could punch holes on one type of page to fit the other binder, I would not try to combine them. To me, the double holes create a messy look, holes that are doubled can allow pages to move around too much, and since the pages aren't the same size, there's also a messy look to the edges of the pages -- and they can be difficult to turn, as well. To me, albums that combine different sized pages look a bit half-assed.

I also wouldn't do this because there is a fairly easy alternative that actually works much better. Photocopy one album's pages onto blank hole-punched paper in the other album's page size. The resulting photocopies will fit the album exactly and look just fine. Once you get the hang of it, it's very easy to do. You may need to cover up the border on your "originals" to get a matching border on the copies. You can also use Bill Steiner's pages as your originals to accomplish the same thing. Or just buy the matching-size pages you need with his page layouts already printed on them. This is for pages without stamps mounted on them, of course.

If you want to combine album pages from the two brands with stamps already on them, I guess you'd need to find a way to hole punch one size of pages to fit the other album. Buy you'll be left with the messy result I noted above. If that doesn't bother you, then do that. I'm a bit OCD about my albums, and I wouldn't like the result of doing that.

Blank paper and pre-printed pages in whichever size you want can be bought online from albumpages(dot)net. I've done this many times with great results. The resulting pages look like orginals. There's no copyright issue, by the way, as you are allowed to make copies of materials you have purchased for your own use and not for sale.

Thanks for the information. I ended up ordering some Minkux and Scott binders. This was a gift and only had a glance at an album that appeared to have both types of pages. I was trying to guess what had been done.