Storage for worldwide stamp collection (pt2) -pre-printed (commercial) stamp album pages
As stamp album pages are a lengthy topic, I have decided to split this post to 3 parts. This first part covers pre-printed (commercial) album pages, the second will cover DIY (printable) album pages and third one will focus with blank pages. Let’s begin with pre-printed (commercial) stamp album pages.
Pre-printed (commercial) stamp album pages
Some Aland stamps on Davo commercial album page
Pre-printed album pages provide spaces with illustrations and/or descriptions of each stamp that is to be placed in each space. This is both a benefit and a curse. Some collectors like the possibility of filling gaps and having precise roadmap of missing items; for them a pre-printed album is a blessing. Others (like me) love to explore/research and include (non-major) variations where possible; this is where the limitations of pre-printed albums show up quickly as the albums have no spaces for these.
Not all pre-printed stamp album pages are equal. The origin of album pages plays a major role on what’s included and what’s not. US based album pages usually list stamps “the Scott way” (by purpose in somewhat chronological order) while European pages usually obey strict chronological order. In all cases, the ordering of stamps is usually somewhat different than in stamp catalogues. Catalogue numbers are very rarely printed on stamp album pages (due to copyrights).
Stamp album pages have major differences in level of completeness that a collector needs to be aware of. For example Scott International includes spaces only for stamps that are “easy-to-acquire”; leaving a huge number of stamps out of the picture. It’s also very common that stamp album pages don’t contain watermark positions or rare perforation variations.
Old (pre WW2) worldwide stamp album (Kirjan Postimerkki albumi)shows only some images of stamps and has very few spaces.
Another angle on quality comes with the way stamps are affixed on pages. The budget version stamp album pages require use of stamp hinges; something many young collectors dislike. Deluxe-versions (often referred as hingless stamp albums) provide pre-attached mounts for each stamp…Deluxe and budget version can (and in most cases will) have differences in page paper quality.
Most pre-printed pages are fitted to maximum of 10-15 stamps per page with fixed space for each major stamp issue. Organized this way a worldwide collection would require at least 35,000 pages. And that is the minimum. For example the highly popular StampAlbumsWeb worldwide album pages span over 71,000 printable pages; that is nearly 20 meters if piled.
To preserve space, many of the older worldwide albums had two-side pages. This saves space alright, but many stamps have (and will get) damaged because of this. This approach provided also problems for anyone wanting to exhibit their collection. Thus modern pre-printed album pages are made usually one-side.
Space is costly, and luckily there are methods that make use of two-sided stamp album pages safe. The first trick is to place a glassine interleave between two-sided pages; glassines usually cost around 10€/100 interleaves. Alternative method is to place a two-sided page inside a (archival quality) page protector; these cost approx. 50c/piece. These solutions cost a premium, but they also save money in form of saved space and binders.
Finally let’s talk about the costs of pre-printed (commercial) stamp album pages… There are two possibilities here. The first option is single-country stamp albums. These are usually very complete and of good quality; but come with heavy price of approx. 50-200€ / country (budget version) up to 200-800€ (hingless deluxe version). A complete worldwide collection storage would easily pay anything from 10,000€ upwards.
The other solution is to go out and buy a worldwide commercial stamp album. These are very scarce, most famous being Scott International (or Green Scott album series). I think Scott International covers over 50 volumes these days having more than 35,000 double sided pages (and spaces for “only” 250,000 stamps). I’m not sure what’s the latest deal with complete Scott International, but I remember seeing some “one-time-offers” with price of approx. 5,500US$.
As the price of commercial stamp albums is steep, the markets for old/used album pages thrive on eBay and other collector sites. In general used album pages (or complete albums) cost approx. 40-50% less than new ones.
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It is my experience that nowadays most people prefer a black- or white-paper stockbook for storing their collection. much cheaper and all freedom to arrange as you like. I admit that you can not take part at an exhibition with such an album.
I agree that stockbooks (and stockpages) are preferred solution these days; at least in Europe.
-keijo-
Hi Keijo, Great blog! I’m a general worldwide collector too.
The Blue Scott International Albums had spaces for 200,000 stamps by the late 1970’s (or so the old advertisements say) so I am not sure what the total would be now. I would guess that it is more than 250,000 though. I wound up going with used Scott Internationals, you really can save quite a bit by going that route. A used Volume 1 1840 to 1940 scott international album would run between $75 to $200 US with several thousand cheapie stamps inside.
Afer a while though, stockbooks make a lot of sense by the time you get into the 1980’s where there is one scott international volume a year or two volumes a year!
Hi Pete,
thanks for the information. That was quite useful piece about Scott International’s.
In Finland (as well as rest of Europe) used/old Scott albums are pretty hard to come by. Buying them directly from US (auctions) is more than tempting, but… Once you add custom fees, VAT, postal rates etc the price of “cheap buy” is far, far away from being cheap