Album Pages On Cd - Anyone Familiar With This Source?

Poking around on ebay looking for various album pages I need to fill in missing areas (long story - another post) I came across some CDs and ancient reference material that caught my eye. I've not seen this particular offering before, but then again, I've never looked that hard. Is this a new source? Any experience with the ready-to-print pages? The software itself? What about the reference collection?

The price seems right to poke around with the stuff and it wouldn't be a huge loss if it ends up being garbage. Still thought I'd ask. Hopefully I can include a link:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/33-000-Pri...401199027061

Item #401199027061 if not.

I used a similar disc years ago when I first started create my own pages. It worked OK and gave me a head start about things I wanted to consider as I created my own pages. I ultinmately decided to just use word or publisher to make my own pages because I found that I wanted modify so much that it was just easier to start from scratch. One I had my own templates and style it was much easier. But that may not work for you if you're trying to fill some specific page gaps.

I would suggest you take a look at Steiner. I have one of those disc and there is no comparison.

Have you looked at stampalbums.com?

You can either sign up for a yearly subscription to his premade album pages or just buy a disc with all page created to date.

I am familiar with the Steiner pages / stampalbums.com. In another time (likely a decade ago?) I saved off some page sets and didn't do anything with them. They were free once, yes? Cost was an issue then, and I don't want to say cost doesn't matter now ... but yes, these look promising.

The pages offered here have images of the stamps (from what I see/read) and they are even in color. Color is a negative for me when printing; color on printed pages seems overkill and confusing AND could cost a forture in ink. I would print in black & white only. Just looking for someone who has looked at these a bit closer.

Maybe I'll bite and be the first to review. I'll add to my list to get the Steiner CD (or page membership?) too.

Which countries are you looking for? There is a range of free pages available.

> Which countries are you looking for? There is a range of free pages available.

Thanks to all for the replies.

Currently only a couple of small sets: Honduras, Iceland, India 1980-1990 unless/until I find reasonable Scott International pages. US to handle special duplicates I find/have.

Mostly it would be an on-demand thing, where I have had these demands in the past. My mostly Scott International set built from acquiring many new Scott parts combined with second hand / remnant albums have left a few holes. Sometimes I repunch/trim "other" pages from acquired sets to fill dates ... sometimes Scott doesn't offer spots for stamps I find on other pages.

I'd love to have "pure Scott" pages, and I AM working towards that, but there are some reasons to supplement. If I could standardize on a supplemental style instead of a hodge-podge of other publisher's pages, as I acquire them, it would be best.

Interestingly, for my US rekindled interests, I have purchased some Mystic hingeless volumes, including their BOB album. No Revenues or possessions! Do I get a Scott set, or start with printed pages to hold my meager (for now?) accumulation?

I just saw this alternate page offering and was curious. Hoping someone had experienced either joy or frustration with this kit. Or maybe a mix. I'm guessing not here ... ebay does show 246 sold, but I guess that is small potatoes.

I WOULD be interested in seeing a list of all options. I saw the Steiner web pages, but I also remember seeing something specific to Germany? Are there others? Is there a web reference / index to what's available?

France Timbres has free pages for the French area, including catalogue numbers, as well as some other countries.

http://www.album.france-timbres.net/index.php

Various pre-1940 Latin American pages here

http://www.albumdeestampillas.com.ar/descarga.htm

Steiner is the way to go. You get what you pay for. Careful though, archival paper can be expensive. Same with printer ink. Then there's the binders too.

Jack Kelley

As for the original post, I recall someone reported that the CD's contain a hodgepodge of pages found on the Internet. I suspect some Steiner pages are on it given some have been posted.

A minor update. I did a bit more research on these CDs. First, searching for ebay feedback specific to this set netted nothing usable. The seller seems to like private listings that hides some info and searching for description keywords returns an empty list. I do see random notes about disks not working and some bizzare user failures. And some failures on the sellers part to replace or refund. But this appears not to be blatant.

I did find more info in the ebay "product ratings", which I hadn't noticed before (google actually pointed me here). Of reviews there, it turns out there are many people happy with these pages. There is no evidence they've actually printed a page and used it but some believe it is "just what I needed". What this feedback did tell me, one of the more negative remarks, the pages are full scanned color images of album pages with stamps mounted. That's how they get color images, although it is also noted that stamps are often missing and thus no images, or no color.

This would indicate to me that these pages were NOT created with the same software they are selling ... not much tweaking you can do to a scanned image as a "document". Short of cutting and pasting to reassemble, customization of any kind isn't practical.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/33-000-Pri...8917719#rwid

My inbox had a 20% off offer from this seller this morning (I had put a watch on the full set to keep a handy bookmark). Hmmm.

Quote: The price seems right to poke around with the stuff and it wouldn't be a huge loss if it ends up being garbage

So what happened ?

Peter

> So what happened ?

Nothing. Yet. I was waiting for some first-hand feedback and from what I found, these pages are not that usable. However, with my 20% off offer, I think I'll go ahead. Give me a second ... done. Using discount but adding in tax a total of $22.28 for the deluxe 4 disk set including their page design software AND the digitized reference material. I believe the references are also just scanned pages (from some other comment somewhere) and not searchable by word(s). We'll see.

These are physical CDs so they have to come to me and then I'll make some time to look at them. Stay tuned.

I'll figure out what I want to do with the Steiner pages. Likely I'll just get the disk since I don't intend on collecting past 2015. However, if I do end up with examples past then, the Steiner pages may prove to be the ticket. I'll figure that our when it happens.

Even if the pages turn out to be really very good, you might find that full-size, full-colour stamps images are more of a hindrance than a help.
It may be difficult to cover the images completely with actually stamps, and also it can be difficult to tell gaps from actual stamps when paging through the album.

As a result, the majority of PDF albums that I have seen, have the stamp images scaled a few mm smaller than the real stamps.

Clive

I can't quite recall earlier discussions about these pages. Was there a suggestion that they might be copied from Dr Chang's collection?

http://www.worldstampalbum.com/main.aspx

There certainly was an individual on ebay, in the past, that sold a CD containing album page scans downloaded from Dr. Chang's website. I don't know if this is the same 'vendor' though.