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

Don's in the affiliate program with HP's ink-cartridge department.



A couple serious questions/points.

At some point, a stamp will shift in the pocket and overlap the label...I assume laser printing would be less likely to cause an issue in that event than inkjet?

Is there variation in the "archival" qualities of printer inks (in regard to safety of surrounding materials)?

A note for those new to Vario pages...I believe it's generally not recommended to have pieces extend above the top of the pocket (e.g., the block of four).

I was asking my question seriously

FYI, I have code in the PDFs which allow you to turn on and off each row of labels by clicking on a button. There is also code which does not print any of teh extraneous elements on the page (buttons, logo, directions, etc.) to conserve ink/tone. Additionally, the labels themselves are designed in a way which limits use of ink/toner.
Don

Anybody agree or disagree with this? There are cases where you'll have one large stamp on a page which would otherwise be all 7 rows. I'm inclined to believe it doesn't make a difference as long as it doesn't protrude off the page, but could see how maybe it could damage perfs which are right at the boundary. Maybe pop it into a mount to the whole stamp is covered?

I've been thinking about doing something similar to DJCMHOH and would be interested in seeing how well it works for pages which lots of different size stamps, even for sets which are mixture of horizontal and vertical. How much rearrangement from the original page is required?

It adds to risk but does not guarantee an issue. The more likely the page is handled, the more likely the risk. I have Varios where the tops protrude and do not worry about it.

I am sure someone has a horror story about it happening like anything. You can do everything "right" and still crap happens.

In general I try to keep my stamps fully covered, but I do have pages that have stamps that protrude maybe 1-2 mm over (French Colonial Stamps in 6-Row Varios which have strips 39mm high, for example) that have been that way for almost a decade and I have not noticed issues. I use Vario binder with slipcases which might help as it keeps the stamps vertical and limits dust getting into the albums, but I have not seen any major problems for those stamps - though aesthetically I'd prefer to have stamps fully covered.

Since Vario 2-sided pages come in a range from 1 to 8rows I mix-and-match pages as I create my albums. So for example most of my early Canada is in 6-row pages (I don't use the 7 or 8-row, too short, starting with 6-rows means can cover most classical-era Vertical stamps as well as Horizontals) but in the 1920s you have those 3 tall commemoratives, so I switched to a 5-Row for the page that will have those issues, then went back to 6-row until the next need to have a page for taller vertical stamps arose.

here is the guide to Vario Pages



and it's always more cost effective to buy the dealer packs of 25 (and now I have seen 50-pack dealer pages as well) off ebay or Amazon. Lowers the price down to US$0.60-US$0.70 a page last time I checked.

I agree with this. And because I (usually) follow it, I can't report any horror stories. There are two most likely dangers that I see. If the protruding stamp is near the outer edge of the sheet, that is where my fingers will sometimes lift and turn the pages. Usually I only touch the lower right centimeter of the page when flipping pages one by one, but when I am near the last page of a 100-page binder and I want to close the binder, I go back maybe 20 pages at a time and lift them while holding the center of the page (vertically) and maybe up to an inch or two into the page. If the top of a stamp is unexposed there, I might yank it out of its space.
My second concern would be creating a bend (indentation?) in the stamp at the seam between the unexposed plastic and the row above. I have not seen a stamp that might have experienced this condition, so my concerns may be unfounded. I agree putting the vertical or larger stamps in a mount should prevent this possibility.
A third case would be a block of 4 (or more) or a souvenir sheet where there is a chance that the wind caused while turning pages could cause the piece to fly out or weak perfs to separate.

Collectors have been using stock-books for a century and stock-pages for decades. Stamps characteristically protrude beyond the strips - indeed, if you're storing duplicates etc in a stock-book, it would be a major inconvenience if they weren't to protrude. As usual, care and the right climatic conditions are the more important things.

Stockbooks typically have interleaves which will go a long way toward preventing perfs on facing pages from grabbing each other.

Yes, you can buy interleaves to use with Vario pages. If I was habitually going to have stamps sticking their heads out of their foxholes, I'd use interleaves religiously.

Second, comparing the average Lighthouse stockbook to the average Vario page, the "seam" at the bottom of each strip is more pronounced on the Vario pages. I prefer not having stamps overlap that seam on Vario pages. I don't give it a second thought in a stockbook.

For my purposes, I consider stockbooks and Vario pages to have different uses.

In any event, don't store them flat (horizontal), and especially not in a stack.

My 2d.

And especially not in a chimney stack.

I still like stockbooks. My collection is a big hot mess of storage uses. There is some consistency between regions though. But as a whole I like many use many storage options.
1) hingeless albums, Mounts on paper, Steiner pages, very few hinges, Vario stock sheets and lots and lots of stockbooks etc.. The trend is that I have mostly gotten away from damaging stamps with hinges ( unless you have Denison or older hinges). My favorite thing to do now is to organized my collection by a defined stamp album and then fill in blank pages for specialty items like covers or blocks of 4 or more and varieties. The stamp companies have forced this. Hingeless albums are expensive and not all countries save Palo albums have full coverage.

I like how Vario calls 25 pack a "professional" pack.

HMM where are floortrader and Rodcam with WW updates. guess everyone took a break for the holidays?

I cannot remember which it was, but there was a thread in which Don replied rogdcam was occupied with other things for a while. At the time he posted that, I noticed rogdcam had logged on.

I, also, have noticed that OP has not posted anything in the last five weeks.

I too would like a Floortrader update! For me, getting to 100K different stamps was almost as hard as getting the next 20K. It took me 10 years to get to 100K, then 8 more years to get to120K. Getting to 300K seems very very difficult. Of course I have distractions... (Minkus!) I do use Vario pages for modern issues (last 10 years) Seems too hard to try to put those on pages. I also keep some of the modern stamps on 102 cards and have a binder with 4 pocket holders and just put the 102 cards in them.