Hello, World, I Like This Forum!

I started collecting stamps when I was maybe 8 or 10 yeas old. That was in the 1950s. I had a red Traveler stamp album. I subscribed to 3 or 4 approval companies. It was fun doing the shopping and selecting! There have been very large gaps of time with a huge circuit of other hobbies, but I'd always come back to stamps.

After the Traveler, I moved my collection to Scott because I bought a couple of nice Scott albums with stamps in them. A few years later, I bought a 4-album Minkus collection at an estate sale. I found that I liked Minkus better because in the pre-1940 period, it had more spaces for stamps, so I moved my collection again. The 4-album collection grew to 5 albums, and more, to 8 albums. No doubt almost all of you know how that goes! Now, it's 14 Minkus Globals.

Several years ago, I bought a CD from Mr. Steiner. Now, I'm a big fan of Steiner pages! I'm re-doing the pre-1950 stamps with Steiner pages printed on acid-free paper with a laser printer. I have a couple of variable hole punch gizmos so I punch the Steiners to fit in my Global albums.

I buy paper at an office supply store after searching for and finding the small print: "acid-free". I know that the office paper pages are significantly smaller than the Minkus or Scott pages, but I'm glad to not be stuck in a 'walled garden'. The Steiner pages are plain and austere, yes, but sets of stamps look oh-so-much better without the sets being jig-sawed together on a page.

I'm not a big fan of mint stamps. I feel the same way about uncirculated coins. They seem to me like they have had no meaningful life, or something like that..

So there's my introduction. I'm glad to be here, learning more about stamp collecting!

Welcome. Steiner pages are nice.

Welcome

I as well am a big fan of Steiner pages. As a mater of fact I have 140 albums worth

Hope you enjoy the forum.

Dianne

Welcome, I think you will find SCF a very useful place for education.

Welcome.
Don

140 albums; WOW Dianne !!!

Are those albums 1-inch binders or 4-inch binders?

Either way, that's HUGE !

lightly-unhinged

They are a combination of 1, 1 1/2, 2 and 3 inch binders.

Dianne

lightly_unhinged,

Collecting for the enjoyment of collecting, whatever that might be, is the name of the game. Don't hesitate to ask questions especially if you need basic information and especially more advanced sources of information for any possible topic. You should be able to find folks on this board a little further along on their collecting journey glad to share experiences.

My personal bias is a used stamp loses the story of its journey in the postal service when it is removed from the cover it transported to its destination. Collecting postal history adds a whole new aspect to your journey in our hobby.

Wishing you many enjoyable future days in our hobby. Russ

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome