Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
should i remove stamps from the other albums to complete the junior one or vice versa.. so many choices. my brain hurts
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Bill, I've had similar questions over the past two years in which I have returned to collecting. Right now I'm working out of a set of used Scott (Junior) International Parts I-V (covers 1840-1965). But the quality of the pages is all over the place. Some are nice as new and other pages tattered and stained. And I'm sure a few are missing.
I had in the back of my mind that someday I would "upgrade" to new "Junior" pages which would be thicker, clean, and acid-free. But then I saw a post about Subway re-printing the five(?) Scott Brown volumes (covers 1840-1940). I'm guessing that's what your "Regular International" albums are - the Brown albums? The price tag for either new page option is a bit steep for my pocket, so I'm taking the decision slowly.
I'm looking forward to hearing what advice you get!
-Steve
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these are blue and seem to cover from 1840 to 1940
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My situation is a bit different..i am wondering if i should dismantle my Scott International albums..i have albums for Canada,Argentina,Austria,Switzerland and Guatemala..i could make my Scott Internationals a lot thinner and lighter if i deleted those country pages..i no longer care if the next owner gets a complete set of pages. IN your case you may want to work the albums that have the best representation of stamps..it really annoys me when i find a nice set of stamps but the Scott International guys did not allow space for it in their pages .
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Bill,
Can you post a scan of the title pages from each? There are a lot of different editions out there. For example, the "Junior" was published both bound and loose-leaf. After 1940, I think they removed the "Junior" from the title. If your albums are loose-leaf, you can probably disregard what is printed on the spine, unless you placed new pages in there yourself. I have purchased more than a dozen Scott Internationals in the past years (mostly just for the stamps), and all of the loose-leaf albums had been personalized to some extent.
-Steve
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In the old days, Scott issued its International Album Line. It was very thorough and virtually complete. Scott got complaints about that as many collectors were not happy that they had album pages that they could never complete.
Thus, Scott issued the International Junior albums. These contained space for most of the stamps, leaving out many of the higher-valued stamps, and many times just leaving out stamps for seemingly convenience sake.
Scott then moved the original International albums into what became the Scott Specialty album line. When Scott did that, they discontinued the "Junior" International album name and called it merely the International Albums. All Scott International Album pages now available are continuation of the old International Junior Albums. Basically they are one and the same. So, if you have good International Junior Album pages, it won't do you much good to go and buy new International pages. They are almost identical.
One more thing is that the old Scott Specialty Albums were revamped several times by Scott. Scott sold the rights to the original International Albums to Subway Stamp Shop. They are known as the Vintage Reproductions' Big Brown International, running from 1840 to 1940. Ira, original owner of Subway was in negotiation with Scott to get the rights to expand the set up to 1960 at the time that he passed away. Would have been nice as the pages are more complete than even the Scott Specialty pages, often including some postal stationary.
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Phil,
I've had similar thoughts. Since I have a US National album, I removed all of the US pages from the Internationals. Some of my International albums came with those pages missing anyway, so that was an easy choice.
When I started with "Big Blue" (Bill , that is Scott International) I had the idea that I would take the time to see which country(ies) appealed to me the most and then pick up one or a few country specialized collections. At that point I would face the same dilemma that you have.
But then the Subway "Big Brown" reprints came onto my radar screen. And now my main question is: would I be happier with 1) Big Brown from 1840-1940 and Big Blue 1940-1965, or 2) Big Blue (minus several countries) 1840-1965 and several country specialized collections.
A third alternative would be to just stay with Big Blue and branch into one of my other areas of interest (e.g., Belgian Parcel Post Railways, date cancels, location cancels).
My current quest is to find the difference between:
a. Big Blue
b. Big Brown
c. Country Specialized
Can anyone help me with that? The Subway website is about worthless in terms of describing the Brown album (unless I am missing something).
Regardless of my decision, there is always the question about consolidation. When I put Big Blue Parts I-V in country order, I end up with a mishmash of mostly correct alphabetical order. But there are also countries out of order because of where one country starts and another begins, and then the inanity of entire pages for one stamp and other pages with no free space for even a single extra stamp.
I'm happy though. These are all good problems to have!
-Steve
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Michael, thank you for once again answering my questions while I am typing them, and in more detail than I anticipated! That's one of the many things I love about this site.
-Steve
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here's the inside page of the jr album.
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You're welcome, Steve.
I faced the same dilemma with the grossly abridged International albums, especially from 1840 to about 1950. My solution was first to create blank pages and make spaces for all the stamps. Next I started to buy Specialty pages for 1840-1950 as I could. Scott was in one of their discontinue modes. Over the ensuing years, I was able to obtain most of the Specialty pages. When I found the Steiner pages, I printed out pages needed to get rid of my hand made pages. I also print out Steiner pages and blank Steiner pages for stamps not included in the International pages, like souvenir sheets. What I am also doing is printing Steiner pages for many back of the book items. Often Scott pages have just one or two stamps on a page. With world wide collectors running pages from 1840 to date takes up alot of room. Anytime I can merge a few pages to reduce the overall page count, the better. I figure to really completely have album pages for all the world UI will need to print out about 4000 Steiner pages. That will mean more space needed as well as binders. I'm doing this right now as I get stamps/sheets that I don't have pages for.
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Bill, that is indeed Part I of the classic Big Blue series, covering up through 1940. If the other albums you have are similar, but cover different years, they are likely other parts of that series. As Michael pointed out, the word "Junior" was dropped after 1940. For reference:
Part I 1840-1940
Part II 1940-1949
Part III 1949-1955
Part IV 1956-1959
Part V 1960-1965
The breakpoints are not always clean by the way, especially when sets get issued over a time period spanning albums.
-Steve
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12:21:21pm
Whew !
I'm even more glad I ran into that set of used Minkus Albums years ago, 1840 to 1975.
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The "Junior" label for Big Blue (1840-1940) continued for a while after 1940, as both my '41 and '43 editions have that moniker. 
With the '69 edition, there was a significant editing process applied to Big Blue, with a number of smaller countries/entities eliminated.
The blog "Filling Spaces"
http://globalstamps.blogspot.com/
lists the specific changes.
After 1969, there are only a few (minor) changes to the BB editions content wise.
If one is looking for information on the layout of the Browns, I've done several blog posts about that.
Do a search on "Browns" at my blog site
http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/
to find them.
(Modified by Moderator on 2015-11-24 16:46:23)
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I'm having a hard time of making any sense of the original question. What countries do your albums contain and what are the end dates? It sounds like you are talking the world but no decent showing of the world can be made with just a few albums unless the end date is 1940. Of course that end date would be cancelled out by saying that you could probably "fill all three of them" You need to decide what countries you want to collect and how deep you want to get into them. Then choose what albums are suitable to your goal. You cannot do everything at once so you should choose a couple countries to work on and get suitable pages to start out with. For countries you plan to get serious with you should either have Scott Specialty pages or print your own Steiner pages (much cheaper) If you plan to casually collect the world I would recommend Scott Internationals.
Over 90% of my collection is on Scott Specialty pages which provide spaces for every major number stamp, My average end date for countries is 1980. This requires just over 150 albums containing around 37,500 pages.
If you are not yet sure what countries you want to collect you can view my pages online at the link below. It shows most of the stamps printed for most countries of the world up to whatever end date I have for each. By looking at all the different countries it should give you an idea of what countries you might like to collect.
Everyones collection is unique and there are no rules as to what and how to collect. It is however best to make an informed descion on what you would like to collect and how much time and money you wish to put into it
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I can't picture myself focusing on 1 or 2 single countries at this time. As far as the original question im looking for suggestions on which album i should start with. I know it's my choice but a suggestion from seasoned collectors would be appreciated.
right now i have thousands of stamps in envelopes with no permanent home. I like them all and im afraid if i dont start filling pages im going to turn into the crazy stamp hoarder guy
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Like I said it all depends on how serious you want to get. When I decided to start collecting again since I was a kid, I decided that I did not want pages that left out the best stamps. So I decided to go with Scott Specialty pages. They are quite expensive but I was able to find most all countries on used pages with some stamps. Usually the pages ended up being free because the value of the stamps offset the price. I don't think there was a better way to go for me. On countries I wanted to go even more in depth in, or extend year dates I used Steiner formats to supplement.
If you want to jump in with both feet and have 30 years or more and a couple hundred thousand dollars over those years to spend then I would suggest doing what I have. Those 30 years constitute working 50 hours a week or more. Of course if you have a lot of money (which is not my case) you could do it much faster.
Many world collectors will get a set of internationals and then upgrade favorite countries into Specialty albums which is a good way to go.
The other big question is what year or years do you want to end country collections. I have always though collecting all countries to present was completely ridiculous. However in the last couple years I have extending those end dates for many countries up to around 2000 so that I would have something to do.
Some of the popular years to end world collections are: 1900, 1940 and 1950. I like the idea of ending at 1940 except that it does not include WWII which in itself is a vast area to collect. Another good reason for ending at 1940 is that you then require only one catalog for the whole world; Scott World Specialized.
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"The other big question is what year or years do you want to end country collections."
I decided to end my WW collection with the year I was born. But then someone gave me a Scott International Part V, so now I collect up through 1965. I probably wouldn't lose too much sleep if I had to part with the 1960-65 portion, however.
-Steve
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Steve, i agree, i kept adding used Scott Internationals when they were a bargain..15 dollars or so used with a few stamps..i certainly favor the stamps prior to 1960...after that the albums seem get clogged with Independant Africa and a cancelled to order paradise of Eastern Europe..but i have the albums to 1969 so i must soldier on !
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As a "traditional" collector I believe that the only way to go is blank leaves neatly written up - particularly if you want to set your own parameters on your collection. Printed albums mostly limit the way you collect to the way the catalogues are made - if your parameters are less there are lots of unwanted pages ( with blank leaves you have stamps on every page) - if you want to expand beyond the limits of the catalogue there is no provision.
For example my GB Machin collections ( so far) fill 5 loose leaf springback albums ( plus a sixth for regionals) and I still have hundreds of identified stamps to mount and thousands more to sort. No printed album on earth can cope with that.
Additionally many middle-period world definitive stamps have not been extensively studied and there are lots of possible variations still to be discovered with unidentified possible shades and plate faults galore. Now that may not be your bag, but if it is you are not catered for, but the worst thing is if you decide some time in the future it is your bag then if you are using printed albums you have to have your variations seperate and then you loose the context.
I realise that you have to practice writing neatly, but it need not be copperplate! -or type captions or page layouts on your computer - but your collection will be unique to you, and to me that is what stamp-collecting is all about.;
Malcolm
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Pre-printed albums are perfect for the "stamp collecting" part of my hobby. Kind of like completing a giant jigsaw puzzle in which you have to go out and find the pieces. The Scott International is my "puzzle" for now. I may go to Big Brown at some point, but maybe not.
For the "philatelist" part of my hobby, home-made is where it's at. My perfin collection, for example, is in a three ring binder with alternating clear Vario sheets and solid black interleaves. That way I can see the front and back of each stamp easily, and the perfin patterns show through.
My fancy cancels are, for right now, on black Vario and Hagner stock pages. They might stay that way forever, as I kind of like the appearance.
My Belgian Parcel Post collection is in stock sheets right now. My vision is to create some maps of the different rail routes with the various postal stops identified. Then I would try to place a stamp cancelled at each location that would have produced one.
My date cancel collection is in glassine envelopes and on stock pages, for now. My vision there is to create calendar pages and then place one stamp with each date in the appropriate place. Not sure whether to do that worldwide, or try to complete one country. Some countries were very good about socking the stamp on the nose with a legible cancel, while others are nothing but smudges. I could see completing a collection for most of the northern European countries, but one for the US or India for example, would be difficult or expensive. Also not sure what years to include. I have heard of "one-year calendar" collections, in which the date and month are the only thing important. I'd like to include year as well, so the date cancel must have a complete date. As a "stretch goal," I'd like to have each cancel include the location. That way, I know exactly where and when (within reason) a stamp did its service to mankind.
So, lots of vision and too little time...
-Steve
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Antionus Ra,
I think I remember reading somewhere that you don't actually store your pages in album binders, but loose in boxes, folders?? Is that correct? If so, could you please elaborate?
I have heard of others who just store their loose pages in "exhibit boxes" Anyone else doing this?
Thanks,
Chris
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01:45:31pm
" .... your collection will be unique to you, and to me that is what stamp-collecting is all about.; ...."
That is something that deserves repeating often, even for long term members. When I see someone writing something that implies that they feel the need to follow some arbitrary printing or schedule with their collections I have to stifle a primordial scream, "It's YOUR collection, collect what you want the way you want. It's a hobby, not a term paper !"
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"It's a hobby, not a term paper !"
You mean there's not going to be a final grade? 
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Chris, No, my pages are all housed in albums. I can't imagine why anyone would keep them loose in boxes.
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AntoniusRa,
Just checked out your stamp collection via the link you provided. Wow.
Words fail ... truly impressive.
Eric
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Eric, Thanks much! Hopefully it will help you decide on what to collect and how deep you want to go. My collection is what you might hope to end up with if you choose albums that have spaces for every major number. Of course it takes tens of thousands of hours and a considerable amount of money but not a fortune. It also takes focus and a deep love of stamps. It's the way I chose to go and have no regrets. It may also require a fair amount of lunacy to get to this point.
Mitchell
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That is one impressive collection!
Starting again I hope to get there.
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08:48:13pm
Over the past year I have acquired 6 albums..The nicest of them are 3 older scott albums. The junior international album and 2 reg international albums. I'd like to start working on one of them but not sure which one would be better. The junior and reg albums have the same stamps? I'm going to assume the junior is more simplified and the regular is a little more intensive. I have 1000s of stamps and could probably fill all three of them
should i remove stamps from the other albums to complete the junior one or vice versa.. so many choices. my brain hurts
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
Bill, I've had similar questions over the past two years in which I have returned to collecting. Right now I'm working out of a set of used Scott (Junior) International Parts I-V (covers 1840-1965). But the quality of the pages is all over the place. Some are nice as new and other pages tattered and stained. And I'm sure a few are missing.
I had in the back of my mind that someday I would "upgrade" to new "Junior" pages which would be thicker, clean, and acid-free. But then I saw a post about Subway re-printing the five(?) Scott Brown volumes (covers 1840-1940). I'm guessing that's what your "Regular International" albums are - the Brown albums? The price tag for either new page option is a bit steep for my pocket, so I'm taking the decision slowly.
I'm looking forward to hearing what advice you get!
-Steve
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09:07:29pm
re: too many albums and none are complete...
these are blue and seem to cover from 1840 to 1940
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
My situation is a bit different..i am wondering if i should dismantle my Scott International albums..i have albums for Canada,Argentina,Austria,Switzerland and Guatemala..i could make my Scott Internationals a lot thinner and lighter if i deleted those country pages..i no longer care if the next owner gets a complete set of pages. IN your case you may want to work the albums that have the best representation of stamps..it really annoys me when i find a nice set of stamps but the Scott International guys did not allow space for it in their pages .
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
Bill,
Can you post a scan of the title pages from each? There are a lot of different editions out there. For example, the "Junior" was published both bound and loose-leaf. After 1940, I think they removed the "Junior" from the title. If your albums are loose-leaf, you can probably disregard what is printed on the spine, unless you placed new pages in there yourself. I have purchased more than a dozen Scott Internationals in the past years (mostly just for the stamps), and all of the loose-leaf albums had been personalized to some extent.
-Steve
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
In the old days, Scott issued its International Album Line. It was very thorough and virtually complete. Scott got complaints about that as many collectors were not happy that they had album pages that they could never complete.
Thus, Scott issued the International Junior albums. These contained space for most of the stamps, leaving out many of the higher-valued stamps, and many times just leaving out stamps for seemingly convenience sake.
Scott then moved the original International albums into what became the Scott Specialty album line. When Scott did that, they discontinued the "Junior" International album name and called it merely the International Albums. All Scott International Album pages now available are continuation of the old International Junior Albums. Basically they are one and the same. So, if you have good International Junior Album pages, it won't do you much good to go and buy new International pages. They are almost identical.
One more thing is that the old Scott Specialty Albums were revamped several times by Scott. Scott sold the rights to the original International Albums to Subway Stamp Shop. They are known as the Vintage Reproductions' Big Brown International, running from 1840 to 1940. Ira, original owner of Subway was in negotiation with Scott to get the rights to expand the set up to 1960 at the time that he passed away. Would have been nice as the pages are more complete than even the Scott Specialty pages, often including some postal stationary.
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
Phil,
I've had similar thoughts. Since I have a US National album, I removed all of the US pages from the Internationals. Some of my International albums came with those pages missing anyway, so that was an easy choice.
When I started with "Big Blue" (Bill , that is Scott International) I had the idea that I would take the time to see which country(ies) appealed to me the most and then pick up one or a few country specialized collections. At that point I would face the same dilemma that you have.
But then the Subway "Big Brown" reprints came onto my radar screen. And now my main question is: would I be happier with 1) Big Brown from 1840-1940 and Big Blue 1940-1965, or 2) Big Blue (minus several countries) 1840-1965 and several country specialized collections.
A third alternative would be to just stay with Big Blue and branch into one of my other areas of interest (e.g., Belgian Parcel Post Railways, date cancels, location cancels).
My current quest is to find the difference between:
a. Big Blue
b. Big Brown
c. Country Specialized
Can anyone help me with that? The Subway website is about worthless in terms of describing the Brown album (unless I am missing something).
Regardless of my decision, there is always the question about consolidation. When I put Big Blue Parts I-V in country order, I end up with a mishmash of mostly correct alphabetical order. But there are also countries out of order because of where one country starts and another begins, and then the inanity of entire pages for one stamp and other pages with no free space for even a single extra stamp.
I'm happy though. These are all good problems to have!
-Steve
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
Michael, thank you for once again answering my questions while I am typing them, and in more detail than I anticipated! That's one of the many things I love about this site.
-Steve
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09:51:15pm
re: too many albums and none are complete...
here's the inside page of the jr album.
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
You're welcome, Steve.
I faced the same dilemma with the grossly abridged International albums, especially from 1840 to about 1950. My solution was first to create blank pages and make spaces for all the stamps. Next I started to buy Specialty pages for 1840-1950 as I could. Scott was in one of their discontinue modes. Over the ensuing years, I was able to obtain most of the Specialty pages. When I found the Steiner pages, I printed out pages needed to get rid of my hand made pages. I also print out Steiner pages and blank Steiner pages for stamps not included in the International pages, like souvenir sheets. What I am also doing is printing Steiner pages for many back of the book items. Often Scott pages have just one or two stamps on a page. With world wide collectors running pages from 1840 to date takes up alot of room. Anytime I can merge a few pages to reduce the overall page count, the better. I figure to really completely have album pages for all the world UI will need to print out about 4000 Steiner pages. That will mean more space needed as well as binders. I'm doing this right now as I get stamps/sheets that I don't have pages for.
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
Bill, that is indeed Part I of the classic Big Blue series, covering up through 1940. If the other albums you have are similar, but cover different years, they are likely other parts of that series. As Michael pointed out, the word "Junior" was dropped after 1940. For reference:
Part I 1840-1940
Part II 1940-1949
Part III 1949-1955
Part IV 1956-1959
Part V 1960-1965
The breakpoints are not always clean by the way, especially when sets get issued over a time period spanning albums.
-Steve
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
24 Nov 2015
12:21:21pm
re: too many albums and none are complete...
Whew !
I'm even more glad I ran into that set of used Minkus Albums years ago, 1840 to 1975.
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
The "Junior" label for Big Blue (1840-1940) continued for a while after 1940, as both my '41 and '43 editions have that moniker.
With the '69 edition, there was a significant editing process applied to Big Blue, with a number of smaller countries/entities eliminated.
The blog "Filling Spaces"
http://globalstamps.blogspot.com/
lists the specific changes.
After 1969, there are only a few (minor) changes to the BB editions content wise.
If one is looking for information on the layout of the Browns, I've done several blog posts about that.
Do a search on "Browns" at my blog site
http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/
to find them.
(Modified by Moderator on 2015-11-24 16:46:23)
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
I'm having a hard time of making any sense of the original question. What countries do your albums contain and what are the end dates? It sounds like you are talking the world but no decent showing of the world can be made with just a few albums unless the end date is 1940. Of course that end date would be cancelled out by saying that you could probably "fill all three of them" You need to decide what countries you want to collect and how deep you want to get into them. Then choose what albums are suitable to your goal. You cannot do everything at once so you should choose a couple countries to work on and get suitable pages to start out with. For countries you plan to get serious with you should either have Scott Specialty pages or print your own Steiner pages (much cheaper) If you plan to casually collect the world I would recommend Scott Internationals.
Over 90% of my collection is on Scott Specialty pages which provide spaces for every major number stamp, My average end date for countries is 1980. This requires just over 150 albums containing around 37,500 pages.
If you are not yet sure what countries you want to collect you can view my pages online at the link below. It shows most of the stamps printed for most countries of the world up to whatever end date I have for each. By looking at all the different countries it should give you an idea of what countries you might like to collect.
Everyones collection is unique and there are no rules as to what and how to collect. It is however best to make an informed descion on what you would like to collect and how much time and money you wish to put into it
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07:47:31pm
re: too many albums and none are complete...
I can't picture myself focusing on 1 or 2 single countries at this time. As far as the original question im looking for suggestions on which album i should start with. I know it's my choice but a suggestion from seasoned collectors would be appreciated.
right now i have thousands of stamps in envelopes with no permanent home. I like them all and im afraid if i dont start filling pages im going to turn into the crazy stamp hoarder guy
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
Like I said it all depends on how serious you want to get. When I decided to start collecting again since I was a kid, I decided that I did not want pages that left out the best stamps. So I decided to go with Scott Specialty pages. They are quite expensive but I was able to find most all countries on used pages with some stamps. Usually the pages ended up being free because the value of the stamps offset the price. I don't think there was a better way to go for me. On countries I wanted to go even more in depth in, or extend year dates I used Steiner formats to supplement.
If you want to jump in with both feet and have 30 years or more and a couple hundred thousand dollars over those years to spend then I would suggest doing what I have. Those 30 years constitute working 50 hours a week or more. Of course if you have a lot of money (which is not my case) you could do it much faster.
Many world collectors will get a set of internationals and then upgrade favorite countries into Specialty albums which is a good way to go.
The other big question is what year or years do you want to end country collections. I have always though collecting all countries to present was completely ridiculous. However in the last couple years I have extending those end dates for many countries up to around 2000 so that I would have something to do.
Some of the popular years to end world collections are: 1900, 1940 and 1950. I like the idea of ending at 1940 except that it does not include WWII which in itself is a vast area to collect. Another good reason for ending at 1940 is that you then require only one catalog for the whole world; Scott World Specialized.
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
"The other big question is what year or years do you want to end country collections."
I decided to end my WW collection with the year I was born. But then someone gave me a Scott International Part V, so now I collect up through 1965. I probably wouldn't lose too much sleep if I had to part with the 1960-65 portion, however.
-Steve
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
Steve, i agree, i kept adding used Scott Internationals when they were a bargain..15 dollars or so used with a few stamps..i certainly favor the stamps prior to 1960...after that the albums seem get clogged with Independant Africa and a cancelled to order paradise of Eastern Europe..but i have the albums to 1969 so i must soldier on !
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05:57:07am
re: too many albums and none are complete...
As a "traditional" collector I believe that the only way to go is blank leaves neatly written up - particularly if you want to set your own parameters on your collection. Printed albums mostly limit the way you collect to the way the catalogues are made - if your parameters are less there are lots of unwanted pages ( with blank leaves you have stamps on every page) - if you want to expand beyond the limits of the catalogue there is no provision.
For example my GB Machin collections ( so far) fill 5 loose leaf springback albums ( plus a sixth for regionals) and I still have hundreds of identified stamps to mount and thousands more to sort. No printed album on earth can cope with that.
Additionally many middle-period world definitive stamps have not been extensively studied and there are lots of possible variations still to be discovered with unidentified possible shades and plate faults galore. Now that may not be your bag, but if it is you are not catered for, but the worst thing is if you decide some time in the future it is your bag then if you are using printed albums you have to have your variations seperate and then you loose the context.
I realise that you have to practice writing neatly, but it need not be copperplate! -or type captions or page layouts on your computer - but your collection will be unique to you, and to me that is what stamp-collecting is all about.;
Malcolm
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
Pre-printed albums are perfect for the "stamp collecting" part of my hobby. Kind of like completing a giant jigsaw puzzle in which you have to go out and find the pieces. The Scott International is my "puzzle" for now. I may go to Big Brown at some point, but maybe not.
For the "philatelist" part of my hobby, home-made is where it's at. My perfin collection, for example, is in a three ring binder with alternating clear Vario sheets and solid black interleaves. That way I can see the front and back of each stamp easily, and the perfin patterns show through.
My fancy cancels are, for right now, on black Vario and Hagner stock pages. They might stay that way forever, as I kind of like the appearance.
My Belgian Parcel Post collection is in stock sheets right now. My vision is to create some maps of the different rail routes with the various postal stops identified. Then I would try to place a stamp cancelled at each location that would have produced one.
My date cancel collection is in glassine envelopes and on stock pages, for now. My vision there is to create calendar pages and then place one stamp with each date in the appropriate place. Not sure whether to do that worldwide, or try to complete one country. Some countries were very good about socking the stamp on the nose with a legible cancel, while others are nothing but smudges. I could see completing a collection for most of the northern European countries, but one for the US or India for example, would be difficult or expensive. Also not sure what years to include. I have heard of "one-year calendar" collections, in which the date and month are the only thing important. I'd like to include year as well, so the date cancel must have a complete date. As a "stretch goal," I'd like to have each cancel include the location. That way, I know exactly where and when (within reason) a stamp did its service to mankind.
So, lots of vision and too little time...
-Steve
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
Antionus Ra,
I think I remember reading somewhere that you don't actually store your pages in album binders, but loose in boxes, folders?? Is that correct? If so, could you please elaborate?
I have heard of others who just store their loose pages in "exhibit boxes" Anyone else doing this?
Thanks,
Chris
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
31 Jan 2016
01:45:31pm
re: too many albums and none are complete...
" .... your collection will be unique to you, and to me that is what stamp-collecting is all about.; ...."
That is something that deserves repeating often, even for long term members. When I see someone writing something that implies that they feel the need to follow some arbitrary printing or schedule with their collections I have to stifle a primordial scream, "It's YOUR collection, collect what you want the way you want. It's a hobby, not a term paper !"
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
"It's a hobby, not a term paper !"
You mean there's not going to be a final grade?
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
Chris, No, my pages are all housed in albums. I can't imagine why anyone would keep them loose in boxes.
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
AntoniusRa,
Just checked out your stamp collection via the link you provided. Wow.
Words fail ... truly impressive.
Eric
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re: too many albums and none are complete...
Eric, Thanks much! Hopefully it will help you decide on what to collect and how deep you want to go. My collection is what you might hope to end up with if you choose albums that have spaces for every major number. Of course it takes tens of thousands of hours and a considerable amount of money but not a fortune. It also takes focus and a deep love of stamps. It's the way I chose to go and have no regrets. It may also require a fair amount of lunacy to get to this point.
Mitchell
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02:35:11am
re: too many albums and none are complete...
That is one impressive collection!
Starting again I hope to get there.
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