It is interesting, though, to play with these numbers to consider the true costs of various collecting styles.

Interesting yes, And scary considering what happens to albums, stock books etc. once the collection becomes estate/merchandise. Any value there might have been sinks faster than Titanic.

Collecting the “entire world” is a major undertaking and at 500 or 600 (or even 700) thousand stamps the undertaking is well nigh impossible. I imagine at 10 stamps per page, it would be unimaginable to have 70,000 pages of stamps! If someone had albums of 200 pages each, that would be 350 separate albums. That’s a wall of stamp albums. A little hard to imagine–and after spending all that money, you’d still have to buy tens of thousands of stamps.

It may be best, as you suggest, to put nearly all one’s funds into the stamps themselves. My view is more toward the “total aesthetic” of the stamps on the pages. I want the albums themselves with the stamps in them to look really good. So, for me, choosing the best looking pages and albums matters, and I’m willing to spend some money on them.

There are self-printed Steiner pages, preprinted pages, and other options including a company called stampalbums(dot)com which will print Scott size (or Minkus) pages for you! At around 25-30 cents a page, it’s not nearly as expensive as actually buying a Scott album, though it’s certainly not cheap if you need dozens of albums. A 250-300 page album would cost $75 (plus the binder) and you’d need hundreds of them to collect the world. So, any way you do it the album part of collecting is going to be expensive and cost you a few thousand dollars. If spread out over many years, though, this is not too painful — especially if the money spent on the hobby replaces money you would have spent on other things, anyway.

My own approach is to be a little flexible and have various types of collections — some in preprinted used albums, some in new albums, some on pages I’ve printed out for free from various websites. It’s more interesting — and less narrow and standardized, I think — that way. But, whatever anyone chooses to do will work if they are thoughtful about it and careful with their stamps, I suppose.

It is interesting, though, to play with these numbers to consider the true costs of various collecting styles. My first childhood album had perhaps 100 pages and mounted a few thousand stamps. Things have definitely changed.

If there really are about 530,000 stamps to collect (total)

Actually the current figure is roughly 621,000 – for more details see http://www.stampcollectingblog.com/number-of-different-stamps-issued.php

But as these calculations were based on 530k stamps, let’s stick to that.

I have printed out a few countries from Steiner’s website and they seem to average well above 7.5 stamps per page. So I wonder where the 71,000 pages figure comes from and is it reliable?

First, the number of pages (as well as count of stamps) is a moving target. But again, let’s stick to files/situation I had when writing these.

Steiner’s website states there are over 50,000 pages. As where the 71,000 pages comes from… It’s a figure that’s been circling around the Internet. I’ve never counted (or verified it) before as it seemed to be in the ballpark. But just to check the accuracy of my writing, I just build a small script/code that counts the number of pages in PDF-files that I have. And the script stopped at 74,972 pages. Some of the PDF-files do have the copyright-yadda-yadda at start/end, and few page sets are highly specialized or out of the scope (like US precancels and US revenues). So I think that 71,000 pages is extremely close to please the needs of a common worldwide collector.

As for number of stamps per page… The Steiner pages do have a spaces for fair number varieties, so that distorts the assumption of 7.5 pages per stamp on some level. As you (likely) know, Bob Skinner from Filling Spaces blog has also covered the topic – http://globalstamps.blogspot.com/2011/12/page-density-for-popular-worldwide.html – and the few figures in there move between 13-15 stamps per page. But these are based on classic 1840-1940 era (or so I assume) when stamps where smaller. If you move to modern post 1940’s era, stamps get larger in size and the number of ’single stamp’ issues increases. So the number of stamps per page drops down hugely (especially if you look for countries having lots and lots of miniature sheets – say Grenada or Soviet Union).

Doesn’t that mean that the number of stamps on Steiner’s pages averages below what most of us would want on a page?

I fear there’s no right or wrong “stamp density” as the beauty is always in the eye of beholder.
But true, there’s some public criticism on this especially on behalf of classic era collectors. I agree that pages could have more stamps fitted into them – but that’s just my opinion.

My point is not really to quibble over numbers so much as it is to suggest that these totals, as interesting as they are, will undoubtedly not reflect any individual’s real costs.

Actually they would reflect my costs IF I had chosen to use Steiner’s pages. As you (and everybody reading the blog) know, I have chosen to use stock books as my storage method. But if I would have chosen otherwise, I know precisely what type of paper I would have used, what binders etc…. Only time will tell how accurate my calculations on costs were, but at least for the time being they seem pretty accurate as far as use of stockbooks apply (and I seen no reason why they would not match for other storage alternatives too).

As for whether or not I would have printed all the pages in one go? Yes, I collect pretty much everything, so I would have started out by printing absolutely everything in one go. Though it would have required lots of space (and patience and funds) in one go, I believe it would have been a smarter choice on the long run. Printing pages “as You go” doesn’t seem like an realistic alternative to me. Maybe if one added just few tens or few hundreds of stamps per month it would work out. But for example I’ve added over 1,200 stamps from over 60 postal entities this month alone; with such number I would consume too much time/energy locating and printing pages I need at that specific moment.

I imagine over a 25 year period the difference between spending $7,000 and $12,000 would not seem to be very significant for some people.

I think this depends on how you place/view the question.

If I asked “would you like to put extra $200/year on album pages or stamps?”, I think most collectors would prefer stamps.

I have printed out a few countries from Steiner’s website and they seem to average well above 7.5 stamps per page. So I wonder where the 71,000 pages figure comes from and is it reliable? Does it include everything including postage dues and other types of stamps many of us would not buy? If so, and if the total of Steiner’s pages we would need to print is substantially less . . . then the total cost would be substantially less. I imagine the figure would vary a great deal from one collector to another, also, depending on many factors.

I’m not sure about anyone else, but I would put far more than 7.5 stamps on an album page. The number would probably be around 15-20 on average per page.

Using 15 per page would cut in half the number of pages necessary to mount all the world’s stamps. And mounting up to 20 on average would reduce the number of pages even more. It seems to me that on standard 8.5 x 11 inch pages (U.S. size), you could mount all the world’s stamps, 15-20 per pages, on about 30-35,000 pages . . . or so. Much cheaper.

I realize that Steiner produces 71,000 or so pages, but would anyone really even want to print all of them? For example, I have a separate U.S. collection in a Scott album. I wouldn’t need Steiner’s U.S. pages. The same for a number of other countries. I imagine even for worldwide collectors, they would not need to print some countries or perhaps some time periods.

So, I am not sure that “a complete DIY worldwide stamp album would cost approx. 12,800€” (including mounts, paper, etc.). Maybe, but maybe not. Most likely, many of us will use some preprinted albums such as Scott (perhaps even some used albums), some DIY albums, and some others like stockbooks. This complicates the total cost estimate, but it’s more realistic, too, I think.

Is 71,000, the number that Steiner gives for the number of his pages? I wonder what the number of pages is in a complete set of the Scott International Albums from 1840-present, just as a way of comparison. They have far more stamps per page than 7.5, so wouldn’t they have far fewer pages? I assume so. Not that this is a cheap option, of course!

My point is not really to quibble over numbers so much as it is to suggest that these totals, as interesting as they are, will undoubtedly not reflect any individual’s real costs. What you collect, the mixture of different types of albums you use, and other factors (even the accuracy of Steiner’s 71,000 page figure which I find a little hard to believe) will all affect your total cost.

Finally, most of us purchase albums over a 20, 30, or more year period, so we spend only a small fraction of the total in any one year. If we added up our total cost of food for 20 or 30 years, we wouldn’t stop eating! I imagine over a 25 year period the difference between spending $7,000 and $12,000 would not seem to be very significant for some people.

* Will you use a computer for designing pages, or make the pages by hand (yes, people do that even today).

* If designing pages with computer, then you’ll have to pick a program to use (albumEasy,StampPageCreater,Scribus just to name few free and commonly used programs; but basically you could go on using Microsoft Word or OpenOffice Writer). Each program can do the same basic tasks – some easier, some not easily. The differences come in when you want to something more special. Also the learning curves are very different: single purpose tools (like albumEasy and StampPageCreator) are easiest to learn; more advanced programs (like Scribus) require time & devotion just to grab the basics.

* What kind of paper to use (archive quality is obvious choice – but what kind of color, density, texture, size etc)

* Mounts or hinges – and if mounts, what kind of mounts (black or transparent, split vs openside etc)

* If you want to compete / display your collection publicly, then you have to fit the essential parts of collection in specific number of pages so it fits exhibition frames. You’ll also have to take into account what national guidelines say about page size, color, use of material etc.

* If you are doing it just for fun / for yourself, then build it anyway you like.

The rest is mainly copywriting: coming up with the story You want to tell; making it visually attractive and easy to approach etc.

Just some thoughts.