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

Recently I've seen some pretty impressive world collections in Harris Albums. It really amazes me that one could attempt to fill so many spaces in those. In a way it could be the most compact way to collect 100K stamps. Here's a Harris page with Russian stamps filling the page and a Minkus page showing similar stamps. Minkus takes up a lot more room but looks better. Is it better to save space or have better style?

Landoquakes ---- Those Harris albums were very popular to many of us who were active collectors thru the 60's and 70's .A set of Harris album was the best we could afford at the time .

yeah, I like looking at Harris albums from time to time. Best budget WW album IMO. Just the right balance for a smattering of attainable stamps.

landoquakes:

I think that either brand is okay for the purpose of mounting a lot of stamps on illustrated pages... But it would only be practical if it included glassine interleaves, which can add much expense and bulk. I actually prefer the look/style of the Minkus, although those huge binders are heavy!

John

Hi! My dad's WW/used collection is my hobby, and I vote to have both filled "artistic" pages and "stylized" pages.

He bought Minkus collections but the early albums were short on spaces, forcing him to use duplicate pages. If there weren't any supplements available, the back pages were just *filled* in whatever way seemed right at the time. He died in '68.

Now in 2024 and I've nearly completed the collection .... of Minkus pages to 1968-!-!

Buying supplements and pages and binders and making complete copies to bring order to the chaos ... it's so much much! I'm getting pretty close to a few complete countries, which I want to show "with style", and others I want to release from colonial oppression.

Meanwhile, if the jam packed pages are in reasonable condition, then I am content to let the crazy quilt be, for a while longer. They hold whatever madness my dad found to his liking.

And I give myself permission to use artistic license .... When it comes to added space, you have to deal with empty space .... I find a tantalizing post card or cover is worthy camouflage for low interest/high dollar blank spots. My complete UN pages are in artistic arrangements inspired by human rights and world cooperation. A girl's gotta have a little fun.

I too would like to see some of those Minkus pages! I'm wondering how often one would need to split binders. A Supreme Global Binder can hold 10K stamps but would already be fanning. I agree with John that interleaving would be needed. One thing that was funny with the last Harris binder I was working on was that there were so many extra stamps shoved in the creases between the pages that they created the same affect as interleaving. The drawback was that the pressure as beginning to cause mint stamps to begin sticking down, despite being hinged well. I guess that is one reason to avoid over-packing in binders.

As a collector who buys other collectors material ,there are times you get to see some nice stuff that they put together . It looks interesting and a decision is made not to mess with it but keep it intact . Even when it is not the way I keep my stuff .

Here is a example that looks good and just mount the page after I cut it down .

Patt ---Welcome to the board ...... we would like to see the material your Dad collected . Where did he live ? Was he a active club member ? Did he attend stamp shows . Years ago I attended a lot of stamp shows and auctions in various parts of the country was he involued in that part of the hobby ?

LANDOQUAKES ---- That Harris album looks a lot like my Harris STANDARD WORLD STAMP ALBUM . I build a six volume set thru high school and college . It was find with a lot of blank pages added over the years to handle my needs . Once I started working full time and did have the money to advance up to the Scott Internationals but never could take apart or remove the stamps from my beloved Harris STANDARDS ALBUMS ,still have those intact .

I take well done pages and remount them on to bigger pages.

Another page which I cut down and mounted into my collection . Just looks to nice to break up and transfer each stamp into a country album ,so will keep it together.

Floortrader - As more stamp collectors pass on. Won't the younger generation have larger collections. ie do you see a consolidation. The collector base is shrinking but the number of stamps stays the same or goes up with new issues.

Green Dragon ---Agree changes are happening now ,feel 2023-2024 are changing years but I don't think there is enough of a picture to clearly say what those changes are or what direction it is going .