Storing And Organizing Stamps By Scott Number Ideas

Hoping everyone is well and enjoying the hobby. Lately I have been thinking of reorganizing my collection by Scott number and preferably in a binder.

My first idea is to use Dealer Sheets, but it seems that every site I've looked at is out of stock. Been checking for a while now and the only site I found is Subway Stamps. Even though I placed a small order to see, I doubt I'm getting them. It's been a week and they haven't updated anything, maybe I'm being too impatient.

My second thought is using dealer cards and then putting them into album pages. Maybe Vario as that is my current setup. Problem is, it's just randomly organized. Think this will be better but not sure if I'd like the way it will look. Plus, I have a lot of large blocks so I'm not even sure if they would fit into the cards.

Ideally the stamps would have the Scott number written somewhere on a card or page. Then put in order into a binder so it's easy to look at.

Hoping to get some better and/ or other ideas, suggestions. Thanks for taking the time to read through and commenting.

In catalogue order, eh? I think you may have re-invented the wheel as that is the normal order most collectors use, in case you didn't realize that. But whatever system you use should make sense to you.

Most collectors have traditionally used a printed stamp album in which to mount their collection from the beginning onward. You seem to have forgotten to mention what stamps you collect, so it's a bit hard to make suggestions. But for many countries, loose-leaf printed albums are available sometimes offered both with stamp mounts already included (expensive) and identical albums without mounts. Adding blank pages to a printed album would allow you to mount blocks and so on. For U.S. stamps, a very popular somewhat more advanced album is the Scott National Album.

Others use blank page albums and label it themselves and organize their collection whatever way they want, often chronologically.

Some use "stock sheets" like Vario pages in a ring binder of some kind. These don't require the use of stamp mount or stamp hinges (though the stamps tend to move around a bit!). With these, you will most likely need a lot of binders since these plasticized sheets are pretty thick and heavy compared to the paper used in other albums. In these, you cannot write or label what the stamps are or their dates or details, so you must add a small printed card where necessary.

Another option is to print your own albums pages to put into some kind of binders. One popular option of these is Bill Steiner's albums pages which you subscribe for and then print out as you want. I used some of his pages in my own collections, though I alter them by adding a different border and changing his fonts to suit my taste. Saving his pages in Word allows me to edit them.

For topical collections -- birds, trains, the Olympics, art, and so on -- most collectors use blank-page albums and mount their stamps in whatever order seems appropriate but often by country or time period.

I've purchased collections on Vario-style plastic pages and they look very nice, but those pages take up a lot of space and are quite heavy. With a collection that I might mount on standard album pages in two or three volumes, Vario-style collection can easily take up twice as many much heavier binders. And they almost never have "write-ups" by their former collectors, only small slips of paper with a year date or some note. So they are less personal and always seem to me more like "storage" than actual albums. Clearly, I prefer the flexibility and personality of standard paper albums, myself.

Most collectors today use stamp mounts, not hinges, but hinges are fine especially for stamps that are already hinged. For mint stamps, it's generally better to use mounts.

Whatever you do, do it the way you prefer, and have fun with it!

Since this is the general forum: most collectors will NOT organise their collection by Scott number.

OP did not tell how (if at all) OP organised the collection, just how OP wishes to do so in the future. I do not think that is re-inventing the wheel, but just an intention.
OP is being very informative.

I don't understand this comment? Did I mention Scott catalogues? I don't think I did.

Most collectors around the world do mount their collections in some catalogue order -- which is simply oldest first followed by later stamps, so hardly surprising -- but of course that is never necessary. In the U.S., it's the Scott catalogue that is most commonly used. Elsewhere, so no one feels offended, it's other catalogues, Yvert, Stanley Gibbons, Michel, and quite a few others. That approach would seem to go without saying, but again it is entirely up to every collector how they organize their collection -- forwards, backwards, upside down, randomly, topically, by color, or whatever way they chose. One of the great appeals of stamp collecting is the freedom to do what you want with your collection.

Interesting. Here's what axc77 said: "Lately I have been thinking of reorganizing my collection by Scott number and preferably in a binder."

"Reinventing the wheel" references his thinking that he might organize his collection by the most common method used to do that which is in catalogue order. It means to spend time coming up with something that already exists and was meant as gentle teasing. I"m not sure why this requires a debate, but with all respect I think you may have misunderstood both what axc77 and I said.

There, hardly, is a stamp album that exactly follows the order of any catalogue.

Some US publishers may, I doubt Yvert does.