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

This is why I switched to Vario Pages for my collections - no dealing with hinges or mounts and the extra cost that brings (especially mounts)

"I switched to Vario Pages " can you tell us what it cost for a page and what the cost of a Vario Binder is .

I use Hagner pages (a little more expensive than Varios). I pay $1.70 a page for double-sided in lots of 25. Mostly 6 or 7 pocket pages, 4 to 7 stamps in per row. If double-sided, that's about 50 to 100 stamps per page. Which equates to about 1.7 to 3.4 cents per stamp. Leaving room for occasional tags/labels, let's say it costs 2 to 4 cents per stamp to use Hagner pages.

Compared with hinges (Dennison at $20 per 1000) is 2 cents per stamp, or Showgard mounts, say $4 for a 40-pack is 10 cents per stamp, the stock pages come out ahead.

Plus the stock pages are re-usable while hinges and mounts generally aren't. For some of the things that I collect, I can easily re-arrange the page when I get something new that I want to add inbetween two other items. I use ordinary school 3-ring binders, $3-$5 on sale from Staples IIRC.

Please correct if my math is wrong. Interested in seeing a cost comparison for Varios or other options.

ZEBRAMAN ---Thanks, sounds like your happy with it . Sorry not a valid method for me . I right now have about 30,000 pages and hope to get up to 40,000 by the time I get to a decent collection . Not only the cost is a factor but weight is a issue ,then factor in space ,it is a no go for anything fancy ..

I use Dennison hinges and FOLD-0-HINGES , If I put on my own hinges on I can usually move a stamp two or three times before I reach for a new hinge . Again it is all how a person wants to keep their collection .

Hagner pages are great for protecting stamps. Much like stockbooks. The big problem though is identification and completeness. I used to house my collection exclusively through stock books and Vario pages. However, I have moved to pre-printed and hingeless albums. They force an organization and I can see right away what I am missing.

@Zebraman, I am open to being convinced stock pages are better than hinging or mounting on paper pages. In addition to weight, I'd be curious about space as well. Surely Vario pages take up more space on the shelf since they are thicker, but I wonder how much more? 2x or 3x or more or less?

Another factor is time. Personally for me hinging and mounting can get tedious. How much time does it take to hinge or mount 25 stamps on a paper compared to putting them in a stock book?

I feel that stock pages are better for some things, but I also use standard pre-printed album pages with hinges or mounts for general country collections. In my collections such as CDS SOTN cancels that don't have a specific numerical order or an element of "completion", I like the flexibility to easily rearrange things on stock pages.

Regarding weight, yes the size and weight of the stock pages is an important factor to consider if it is a large collection. A ream of paper (500 sheets) is about 5 pounds, or 1 pound per 100 pages. I estimate that Hagner and Vario pages are about 7 pounds per 100 pages. So the stock pages are about 7 times heavier than plain paper (24#). Because some album pages are larger than 8 1/2 x 11 or are on heavier paper, let's round off to say stock pages are about 5 times heavier than stamp album pages. Harris and Scott pages supposedly use 24# to 40# paper, and White Ace 60# or more.

By thickness, a stack of 100 stock pages or 500 sheets of paper is about the same thickness, 2 to 2 1/2 inches, so the stock pages take about 5 times more space in volume versus plain paper. Then again, thicker album pages and adding mounts and album spacers (filler strips) will reduce the difference in size. Counting the pages in a couple of filled albums, it looks like the stock pages take only about twice as much bookshelf space as the album filled with mounts. Too many variables, I think, to give a more precise answer.

Perhaps others with more experience with stamp album paper types can give a more complete answer.

I use everything. stockbooks are great. Vario much like stocks books can be great. It really all depends on what your trying to do. If you just want a smattering of stamps, stockbook are the way to go. If you have many varieties and cancel collection as an example or topical collections stocks books all work well. Where pre-printed helps is if your are trying to collect one of everything. The stampdragons collection therefore is a hodge podge of stockbooks, and preprinted albums. On avg I try to avoid hinges. Mostly because I lack the patience for hinging and want to keep stamps in the best possible shape that I can. Though I admit that hinging can be fun.

I tried to use AI to generate an image with someone having way too much fun with stamp hinges. I'm not sure if it knows what a stamp hinge is, but here is what it came up with.


Regarding hinges, I hear some people cut the Dennison (or other) hinges in half to make the packet go twice as far. And they still hold just fine.

Oh my! Five fingers? Maybe easier to mount two stamps at the same time!

Re vario page prices, on ebay wizard supply is doing 100-page packs of Vario 5S (5 rows, 51mm high pockets) for US$64.90. So US$0.65/double sided page. A row can hold 3-6 stamps each depeding on their size, so figure 30-60 stamps per double-sided page, depending on how you lay out the pages, for the five row pages.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1143628214...9SR9Txkd7eYw

Packs of 50 are US$34.95, or US$0.70 a page

You can find deals like that pretty regularly on ebay and Amazon

Vario makes pages from 1 row (the entire sheet) to 8 rows so if you are mounting a lot of small definitives, use a 7 or 8 row page, at 6 stamps a row (7 if you don't mind tight fit) and you can mount up to 90 stamps on a single 2-sided page).

Binders are more of an issue - prices on those have gone quite high since COVID, but you can usually find a dealer on ebay or Amazon on the US$30-US$40 range per binder/slipcase combo for the Vario F binders (3 ring, I think 1 1/2 inch). But Vario pages you can use any three ring binder to hold, they are universal in that sense.

For me Vario pages are the answer since I collect variants not listed in Scott for most countries, and I greatly dislike having to use separate pages to mount the variants not depicted on pre-printed/pre-designed album pages (or worse, cramming the variants in blank spaces on the page next to the main stamps). So for how I collect, Varios are a perfect fit.

The only "drawback" to using Varios is that there aren't any references to where to put stamps on a page. Some collectors will make paper inserts to put next to the stamps so that they know what is there or where to put stamps they may acquire in the future, but for me I decided instead to make "insert keys" - basically album page mockups I can put between the Vario pages to use as references to what stamps are on each page. This also lets me design the layout for the pages beforehand to include any variants I want. Insert keys are designed using the wonderful AlbumEasy program.



So for example here is a page from one of my Canada albums, showing the page insert to the left of the Vario page, and the Vario page with the actual stamps on the right. Here I was able to include both fluorescent versions of the Lighthouses se-tenant block of four right next to each other, whereas with pre-printed/pre-designed pages I'd only see space for one block.

And no mounts needed to keep the NH stamps never hinged, and older stamps don't have to risk having more damage potentially done to them through use of those horrible modern hinges.

Nice pages and a balance layout . Glad it works for you . Each collectors try's different methods until they find what works for them.

The ebay seller at the above link also has 200-page packs for an even greater discount, and if you buy two items, there is a further discount. No relationship, except as a buyer.

DJCMHOH - very nice pages thanks for sharing.