Scott US National Album Pages Questions

1). When an item is a multi-stamp issue under one Scott number, is there any distinction made between it and a souvenir sheet? For example take the Endangered Species issue of 2023. 20 stamps in one pane, listed under one Scott number, with the individual stamps as lettered sub-entries. Does the album page for that issue just show a naked block of 20, or is it pictured with the selvage included, like it was a souvenir sheet?

2). Are the US National pages meant for a 2 post binder?
3) Can the US National "used" issue pages be readily dovetailed with standard supplement pages?

Thanks in advance.

National pages can be found as two (rectangular) hole, three hole and both two and three hole. The page dimensions for the national are the same without regard to holes. However, the binders to hold pages are hole driven.

Edit:

Remember if you wish to depart from what a normal page shows, that is why "blank" national pages are made.

I've often taken the two (rectangular) hole pages and punched them to be 3 hole to fit my binders.

I have not found their "used" pages very helpful. It is much easier for me to just lay out stamps on a blank page, as parcelpostguy suggests.



I also feel free to adapt pages as I see fit. For example, I try to get booklet singles with both one and two straight edges:

Sometimes it's a bit difficult to make clear sense of Scott catalogue numbers. Scott #5799 is a sheet of 20 different stamps, and the sheet doesn't repeat any other stamps in the sheet (ie. 20 stamps but only five different stamps repeated four times) as small sheets often do. So common sense would tell you 20 different stamps, each usable by itself separately, would each get its own catalogue number. But common sense does not always drive the Scott Catalogue department. Even though this has has been the case with stamps for 170 some years, you never know what twists and turns Scott/Amos will put itself through.

Instead of doing what common sense would tell you, Scott assume every collector will (or is "must" is a better word?) buy the entire sheet of twenty and mount it in their album intact. Or maybe they "direct" every collector to do that. So they give one catalogue number for the entire sheet, not twenty separate numbers, one for each stamp. Is this weird? Yes, it is weird.

With earlier issues they generally did not do this -- until fairly recently with mini-sheets (or whatever they're called). Now they do it all the time. So we just mount the entire sheet as if it were just one big stamp. Which it isn't. Personally, I think it's one more factor that makes keeping a U.S. stamp collection up to date more expensive and not as popular as it might be. I might like to mount individual stamps as I find them, but I can't. I need to hand over a lot more money for a sheetlet. It is one major reason I stopped my own U.S. collection at an earlier date than I would have liked. I am not interested in collecting sheetlets. I am a stamp collector of individual stamps.

At least individual stamps attached to each other but which do not make up a single sheet of stamps with fancy selvage still get their own catalogue numbers. Apparently, though, if you add some fancy selvage, it becomes a mini-sheet or sheetlet and that makes those stamps different. How exactly they are different, I don't quite get, but Scott seems to think it knows.

By way of contrast, the 1982 State Birds and Flowers sheet of 50 stamps all got separate catalogue numbers (#1953-2002), not one number for the entire sheet. Of course, it has no decorative selvage around the stamps and does not have a title at the top of the sheet, so maybe that's the determining factor?

But wait! There's more! From the same era, the 1986 presidential mini-sheets of nine stamps each got only one catalogue number for each sheet of nine samps (#2216-19 for four sheets of nine each) as did the later 1991-95 World War II mini-sheets of 10 stamps each.

So in a regular sheet of all-different stamps, each stamp its own catalogue number. But all-different stamps grouped into what Scott considers a "sheetlet" (or is it a "mini-sheet"? or is it a "small pane") don't. That means Scott considers that all the separate stamps have to be collected with the "sheetlet" intact even though it does not make a lot of sense to give 20 stamps one catalogue number. imagine there may have been some angry disagreements over this policy in the Scott offices when it was being designed. Clearly I think it's strange at best.

It's interesting to contrast this with the early days of Scott and its catalogue. In the late 19th century, Scott made every possible effort to give different catalogue numbers to as many stamps as possible. This was even true when, in some cases, stamp after stamp was basically the same stamp with only minor and very hard-to-see differences. Check out #7-9, 18, and 20-24 (the 1850s blue Franklins) for example. Except for perf vs impef varieties, they're pretty much the same stamp. And there's 13-16 and 31-35 (1850s green Washingtons), all the same stamp again but different in fairly minor ways. And 65, 83, 85 88, and 94 (pink Washingtons). To differentiate these stamps takes a magnifying glass, a catalogue, a very good eye (usually), and some luck since they appear to be identical. That's what Scott intended. Making nearly-identical stamps into "different" stamps, there would be more album spaces and more people would buy the different varieties from Scott and other dealers. Yes, it is a conflict of interest.

Back then, Scott even listed with catalogue numbers some items that turned out not to be stamps at all, but proofs of stamps that were not for postal use. Scott 102-111 were this. Was Scott being a little over-zealous perhaps?

And they listed essays as if they were stamps. See #55-62 which have since been moved to the Essays section.

They really really wanted more stamps in their catalogue so there would be more stamp purchases. Today, they go in the opposite direction. Why? Maybe it's for a different sales-oriented reason.

The recent approach of giving a single catalogue number to sheetlets of stamps makes it much less likely that any collector will mount individual stamps from these little sheets separately -- because they apparently are not supposed to do that and their album is not set up that way. I imagine this is done to help dealers. If all collectors buy the entire sheet of 20 stamps, that makes for a higher price for the dealer and it's much easier to stock and sell sheetlets than all 20 individual stamps. Clearly, Scott works for dealers as much as, if not more, than for collectors. So, we get all of them in a sheet treated as "one" stamp even if they aren't all one stamp. But let's pretend they are.

As for your National album questions: No, these are not called "souvenir sheets". Those are literally small sheets issued as souvenirs -- of a stamp show, typically. These newer things are "sheetlets" (or mini-sheets maybe?)

As you might guess, album pages provide a space for entire intact sheetlets, not for individual stamps. Scott doesn't even bother to provide an alternate extra page for mounting the individual stamps should you choose to also do that. There's only one way you can mount sheetlets, intact and not as separate stamps.

All Scott National album pages come with two rectangular holes (for use in two-post binders) AND three round holes (for 3-ring binders). You decide which type of binder to use since all pages fit both types of binders. Some wild-eyed radicals might even put the 3-ring pages into regular 3-ring binders instead of Scott's binders! I don't think that looks as good, but it's cheaper, and hey, it's a free country.

Scott "used singles" pages have the very same hole punching. So those pages will also fit either type of binder. You can add those pages to your regular National binder if you're a glutton for every conceivable stamp, both as mint and used. Nothing wrong with that.

Cheers! And have fun.

Drew M - Yes, my intent was to buy both the "normal" supplements and also the "used singles" supplement, but only using the used pages that complimented the sheetlets.
I guess I'm still not understanding if when an issue is a "sheetlet", does the space Scott provides fit the wntire sheetlet with selvage, or just the "block" of stamps? I presume when a booklet comes out and has 4 designs, the space is a simple block of 4.

Also, has there ever been given a reason why Scott puts the Scott numbers inside the design rectangle, rather than below? It's not like once I have the stamp I'll never care to see the Scott Number again. I'm not the kind of person who inventories their holdings. If I wanted to know what items I have I'd have to cross reference their image with a catalogue. It would have been much more convenient to have the number always visible in an album.

Also, has there ever been given a reason why Scott puts the Scott numbers inside the design rectangle, rather than below?

If nothing else, it looks less cluttered that way. When I make my own pages with Album Easy I put the numbers inside, too.

Re: Scott number placement: I want to be able to see them. It also helps with inventory control

Amos Publishing puts them inside the frame.
I print clear self-adhesive label stock and add them below the Scott frames.


Chuck, using AlbumEasy, puts them inside as well.
My AE pages place them below the frame.

I don't think Scott has ever put catalogue numbers below stamps on their album pages. And until fairly recently, they didn't include catalogue numbers anywhere on album pages -- but they now do inside the stamp boxes. It's a big help to mounting stamps so you know which stamp goes where -- and a big help to know what stamps you still need.

With the catalogue number beneath any stamp you mount, once upon a time, all you had to do was lift up the hinged stamp, and there was the number. But by the time Scott had started adding numbers to their pages, most collectors had probably moved onto using stamp mounts which cover up much of the stamp box so typically you can no longer see the number. So that's a drawback of numbers inside the stamp boxes.

I'm very glad they now include catalogue numbers, and personally I think scattering numbers outside the stamp boxes looks messy and clutters up the page. Collectors will have different views on this, of course, but for me less is more. Once I've mounted a stamp, I really don't need to know its catalogue number for any reason I can think of. If you're wondering how I know what stamps I have, I keep an inventory list of all stamps I've mounted (actually it's an even shorter list only of stamps I still need), and I do not use the album as my inventory which would seem pretty inefficient.

Scott for many years barely even labeled stamps on their pages. Only some years ago did they add headings identifying what the topic of stamps was, and I think they do that only for commemoratives. Their approach is very minimal. That's a good thing, I think.

As for the size of the boxes in which mini-sheets or sheetlets (or whatever they're called) are mounted, they're always large enough for the entire sheet including the selvage with all the pretty designs and words on it. You do not remove the stamps from any small sheet to mount them alone as a block. That would be stamp collecting sacrilege!

I do not collect selvage. I am a collector of stamps. Believe it or not. So I find the whole sheetlet-with-selvage phenomenon pretty silly. Being forced by Scott to mount the entire sheet -- with selvage attached -- instead of the somewhat "purer" way of collecting just the stamps by removing each stamp and mounting only it, is a bit annoying to me. Of course, I could use blank pages and still do that -- but what kind of radical do you think I am? Or am I just getting cranky? Maybe that's it.

DrewM, okay, just to be clear, the Bugs Bunny sheetlet that had 2 sets of the 10 stamps. Does Scott show the whole sheetlet with duplicates or just the block of 10?

Or are you not considering that issue a sheetlet because it has repeated stamps in it?

Other question. Amos Advantage makes pages with mounts already on page, yes? Do they do so for the so-called "used" pages?

Another Scott national pages question:

I was looking at the listing for the National supplements and saw there was a handy page with mounts listed for each issue. What concerned me is that there was a listing for the mounts for the Federal Duck stamp as well. Does Scott stick those issues among the regular commemorative pages? Or do they include a separate page for that year's Duck issues?

Separate page for the ducks.