A Stamp For Every Country Conundrum - And A Solution

My maps look OK. Agree the country flags are not great in black and white, but not really a problem for me. One solution - get some coloured flag labels and stick them over the top.

I'm enjoying mine. Started out with a red GB stamp and decided to try and get a red stamp for every other country too. Soon ran out of options - my duplicates pile isn't as extravagent as I thought it was :)

Thanks for your feedback.

In all honesty, it never crossed my mind that someone would expect (or think) that the interior graphics would be in color. Especially for what is essentially a stamp album. Interior color graphics would raise the cost of the album two or three times... I have received no other complaints about the quality of the map graphics...

I do appreciate your feedback!

John

Mine (hardback comprehensive) arrived today. Very nice album.

I do like the idea of getting flag labels.

Looking forward to digging in and filling those spaces! Great work.

I recall when I got my first album many years ago, applying the sheet of flags was fun.

Indeed. The only potential problem I see is finding a source for current (as of 2021) flag stickers. Does anyone know of a source that has all of the "legal" countries, as of 2021? That's what the simplified ASFEC album has...

I don't know if the sticker idea would work well with the comprehensive version, though. It includes forerunners, territories and other entities.

I guess someone could grab the free version (comprehensive) at the AlbumEasy/StampSmarter sites and change the graphics to color, and then self-print in color. That would be quite expensive, even if the album was scaled down to a simplified version. Not to mention the time involved to edit the source file, gather graphics, and etc. Definitely a project for someone with a lot of time on their hands...

Another factor is the maps. You can get tons of maps for personal projects. However, anything that is offered to the public must be public domain. I used CIA maps, because they are public domain and somewhat uniform in appearance.

John

I found that most folks prefer black and white album pages. I am not sure if it is the printing cost, if they prefer that the stamps add the color, or if they feel that having black/white allows them to see the missing stamps easier.

Of course, if the pages are downloaded in color users can easily choose to print in gray scale if desired.
Don

I thought about this over the weekend, after receiving my comprehensive. A set of flag stickers I looked at on Amazon even omitted certain smaller countries, including some of the Caribbean nations and even the Vatican and Liechtenstein.

I THINK my route will be where possible, to place a postage stamp featuring that nation's flag instead of the flag itself. Maybe. An idea I like, anyway. For those that are unavailable, maybe I can find something to print.

Why not use UN stamps that featured flags of all countries a few years ago? And UN stamps should be available at a steep discount.

A great idea! One could build an ASFEC album around those issues. Alas, since the last of that series was in 1999, the world map has changed quite a bit since then. I guess that you would be able to cover a big percentage that way, but definitely not all of the "legal" countries which exist in 2021. I haven't counted them one-by-one, but I think you would have some holes, flag-wise...

John

UN Flag stamps have been issued as recently as 2020.

Oops - my bad!
Apologies...

John

I realize this topic is dormant, but I just acquired ASFEC and am modifying it to put the countries into geographical order, a la the Smithsonian album available on the APS website. I was thinking of converting the flags to color, and adding some missing flags, but that would take a lot time, that I would rather spend with my stamps.

I noticed two "countries" missing from the Offices Abroad:
Poland - Offices in Danzig
Poland - Offices in Levant