Pushing 330,000 All Different Worldwide Stamps In One Collection .

Here are the STEINER PAGES for the same series of stamps they are more spread out over many pages . Hope this helps ,I left some of the boarder lines on the pages to I.D. them as Steiner pages ,sometimes with out the page boarder design it is hard to know which page maker the viewing pages are from ,I usually chop them off in my scans to increase the size of the scan .

I see Nicholas C answered the discussion while I was getting my material together ... thanks Nic

NOTICE ---I am in the process building a collection of albums ,with album pages from a Scott International cut down and repunched for a three ring binder . With the high cost of the Big Blue Binders increasing and their ability only to last 10 or 12 years of moving off the bookcase and back they wear out too fast and fall apart both on the edges and unravel in the corners from use . That is why I perfer three ring binders , price and the ability to add pages much easier .

My apologies for taking the thread a bit off focus. As a collector who does not use any album pages, I am not familiar enough to know the difference between Steiner and Scott pages. I guess I just liked that particular page because of how the stamps are presented. But I do agree that the stamp in the low right corner should be centered vertically so that it doesn't pull the eye all the way down.

Scott International pages, especially the Part I pages, were very poorly designed IMHO. It seems the purpose was simply to fit as many stamps per page as possible. They also didn't bother reworking pages when additional values were added to a set in subsequent years. You'd think Amos would want to redo the Part I (and maybe Part II) pages completely with better organization and 1-sided thicker paper. They might actually get more people to buy them. That said, I still prefer the Steiner pages because of the depth of coverage. I have two sets of International Part I pages and they are all empty (still in their original binder). I have a newer never used set of Part II (A and B) pages in jumbo binders and likely will not use them because they are two sided. Beyond that, I have a mash up of pages from Parts II through Part VIII. Most appear to have been assembled from early part versions and yearly supplements. Most of the Parts II through Part IV pages are empty since I have decided to expand my Steiner page remounting project to go through 1959. For the rest, I might go the path of trimming the pages and inserting into page protectors. The paper is just too thin for hole punches to last very long without the need for reinforcements.

Gotta go with Scott specialty. While we are on the subject of how to store a large WW collection. Most stamp collections have different types of albums since all the manufacturers save Palo don't have albums for all the countries. And Palo is expensive. Hence my collection is a hodge podge of albums. When I am done accumulating albums I am going to consolidate so that there is more uniformity.

The only thing with Steiner is the standard paper size. It's a price you have to pay. BTW most people who use steiner pages use the wrong paper. The paper has lignin in it. But for 330,000 stamps. You can only really do this with Steiner. I think I will target 100,000 first. Maybe 2,000 stamps from every major country?

Scott Int'l Part 1 on one sided pages would be great--they do have Vintage Repro on one-sided, high quality paper so I'm not sure why not any parts of Int'l received that treatment. I collect Part 1 largely because of the amazing amount of support for it in the hobby, it is easy to collect and they are so widely collected you can get album breaks on ebay. The Big Blue blog with the checklist is such a tremendous resource, as are the threads in this forum. But slowly starting to feel tide shift towards Steiner. The ability to print your own pages is hugely attractive. I do have a mess of Part 2's (i.e. three or four pretty well filled sets) which need to be merged into one album and remounted--might be a good opportunity to test drive Steiner. As far as I understand Part II (unlike Part 1) is nearly complete as far as stamp issues go so Steiner wouldn't have more empty spaces. But remounting Scott Int'l Part 1 in Steiner seems daunting, not sure I will ever do that.

What paper used in stamp collecting are we saying contains lignin? As I understand things, paper made today, above the level of newsprint, for standard and commercial usages have the lignin removed during manufacturing.

I could be wrong but I thought that most cheap copy paper has some lignin left in it. Not much but some. Yes it is removed but they can't get it all. Copy paper acid free or not is not archival paper. Most people just use it because they mount the stamps in archival mounts. Scott and Palo and lighthouse paper are expensive for a reason.

I suspect for most current stamp collectors by the time the paper becomes a problem, they will have passed their collection on to someone else. I always assume that unless the box says archival or acid free and lignin free that the paper is not archival.

One big advantage to having multiple storage companies for your WW collection, is that if one company lies or is wrong about their archival standards, your whole collection is not in danger. Remember crystal mounts, glassine long term and cheap stock books all have hurt many stamps.

A note on paper used for Steiner pages:

I use Southworth business paper which is acid and lignin free. It is more expensive than regular copier but it has cotton in it which makes it a little sturdier for mounting stamps.

I use to get it at Staples here in Canada but it looks like they have discontinued it. I have a good supply at the moment but will eventually have to find a replacement.

Dianne

NIC and TSMATX ----I believe many of us have had experiences of frustration with the Scott International series of albums . You both had seen my many postings about dissatisfaction with those BIG BLUE binders ,they just don't last for daily or weekly use .

Agree what is being said here about Amos press refusing to address the many errors with the internal pages that has frustrated many collectors also . They could of made correction pages and sold them as a packet ,to make using their pages easier . The paper they used for later volumes seems to be of lower quality also .

With these and other problems not being addressed and corrected left the door open for a outsider like Steiner Pages come in and establish them selfs . Now I prefer Steiner Pages like many others .

thanks for the tip on southwest paper. I have steiners for some of my pages.