Storage for worldwide stamp collection (pt1) – Stockbooks
As said in previous post about my collection, stockbooks are my choise. In these I place stamps side-by-side (loosely) in every other row (meaning I use 40-50% of maximum storage capacity); each page accommodates approx. 30 stamps.
My stamp collection: Early Luxemburg in stockbook page
I have 4 reasons why I place stamps this way: 1) it looks better (than overcrammed pages) 2) long/tall stamps fit better (and don’t get damaged/stuck with other stamps) 3) there’s room for notes (I insert small pieces of paper where necessary) 4) adding single new stamps/items is somewhat easy as I can always use the extra/spare row either below/above.
Stored this way a complete worldwide collection of 530,000 stamps would take approx. 18,000 stockbook pages; or 562 stockbooks of 32 pages. As stockbooks cost roughly 0,30€/page, the cost of complete worldwide stamp collection storage solution would be 5,400€ – making this is a very space and cost efficient solution.
Another reason I prefer stockbooks is ease-of-use. I think this is pretty self explanatory for anyone who has tried other alternatives.
However, stockbooks are not a problem free solution… Thick stockbooks (meaning 64 pagers) have durability issues; at some point they usually break from the back (binding). The “oh-so-popular” black-paged stockbooks with transparent strips have similar durability issues with glue used on strips (I have 4-5 stockbooks that are falling apart strip by strip)… For these reasons I personally prefer either 16 or 32 A4 sized quality (meaning Leuchturm/Lighthouse, Linder, Edelweis or Davo) stockbooks with white pages.
One of the biggest woes I hear from several short-term/new stockbook users is the need to move stamps around (from page to page, from stockbook to stockbook) as collection grows… Well, it’s bound to happen in most storage solutions unless you preserve an empty space for each stamp from the beginning. One can always make some precautions (like using only every other row) that make this process smoother and in best occasions it can be postponed with several years.
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[...] main problem with traditional stockbooks is that pages are fixed on the book. Stock pages on the other hand are to be placed on a binder [...]
[...] Stock books: from 5,400€ upwards [...]
Hi Keijo,
I too keep my world wide I have sorted in stock books and did intend to add substantially to the 50 or so stockbooks I have.
However as I put countries in books I add up the number of stamps I have per country and count the number of stamps issued (minus mini sheeets which I do not collect) and workout a percentage which I have.
I have housed Scandinavia and have for example 41% of Denmark and 31% of Finland, but only 5% of Aland!
I have decided to house countries for which I have in estimate less than 15% of issues on Hagner sheets without spaces for new issues and therefore save on housing them in stockbooks. If however I buy or receive a large number of issues for a country I have little of now (under 15% – eg. Andorra) the Andorra on stock sheets can go in a stockbook.
This idea takes the pressure off me getting so many stockbooks in a short time and makes me concentrate on housing countries I have large colections of (eg. Australia,GB, Germany, USA, New Zealand etc)
I did start out housing the whole of the Pacific countries and have a lot of blank pages waiting for the Marshall Islands and Palau to fill! With used hardly likely!
This collection is to the end of 2000 only, with used over mint preferred.
BTW are you able to send me a copy of your Excel template file?
Keep up the good work!
Peter
@Peter… Your approach sounds somewhat practical; and I definitely like the fact that you are kind of picking the best of two worlds.
Personally I’ve placed countries with small completion percentage usually after (or between) larger country collections in a stock book. If the main collection in the book grows out, then I can somewhat easily relocate the smaller country to somewhere else, and use the gained space for main collection. Or if the smaller collection grows a lot, then I simply pick up a new stock book and relocate it there… And as I usually have started with every other row empty, I can add a lot stuff before really needing to move stamps around… But that’s just my approach.
As requested, I’ve emailed the template with instructions.
Keijo,
I store my collection in stock pages in Lighthouse Vario binders. But now I see stockbooks are a lot cheaper than the binders + pages. Am planning to moves some of the large collection countries to stockbooks. Where do you buy yours from? Do you have a reference number for that product?
Thanks
Hi Ram,
I use a variety of stock books:
Lighthouse (or Leuchtturm as it is called in Northern Europe) was my primary choice for nearly 20 years. The ” L4/16″ is very good choise because of it’s durability compared to thicker ones.
Lindner is something I’ve used occasionally. Their “1161 Standard” is of very good quality, and I’ve got plenty of their budget “anniversary” stockbook (1160-50).
In recent few years I’ve bought mainly Importa “Edelweiss 16″ & “Edelweiss 24″ stock books. Once again, of very good quality.
Where do I buy… From Finnish stamp shops; buying internationally would be insane because of postage costs.
Thank you for your kind reply. Have found a deal here with 5 Lighthouse stock books (black pages, 32) for $80+$11 shipping.
Possibly a good one?
Also, how do you get your swap material.. since you only keep stamps that you don’t have? I’m only curious
Thanks.
@Ram… That’s not bad price. Not great, but not a rip off either. I think it’s pretty close to official list price of Lighthouse products.
Re, swap material… I responded this at About me topic where you initially placed the question.
Thanks Keijo. You are very kind in replying to comments.
There is a stamp museum near my house (about 5 minutes drive)
http://www.spellman.org. They have some good collections on display as well as a store. They also have these big boxes filled with off-paper stamps for 2c each. I spend an hour every other weekend there finding some nice stamps:)
@ram… The 2c per stamp boxes sound lot of fun. And the price is great too.
And I definitely envy how great philatelic (public?) library you have on Your doorstep. Use it wisely.
Hi. I love your blog. My collection has sat dormant for the past 5 years as I focused on other things but your writing is bringing the “sickness” back!
I agree with what you’ve written re: stockbooks but I still have this issue that my collection should look pretty and tell a bit of a story when non-collectors view it. So I build my own pages, slowly. They may not look much different than the Steiner pages but the descriptions tell a bit more about the purpose of the stamp.
My struggle with using stockbooks is that I am forever adding slips of paper with catalogue numbers, etc. Which can get messy.
So two questions — hopefully for further posts!
Do you show your collection to others? If so, what stories do you tell while showing your collection?
Do you keep notes about the stamps in your stockbook above and beyond the inventory side of things? If so, can you show a picture of that?
Thanks again for everything you have shared on the blog and in the comments!
Mark
Hi Mark,
happy to hear I’ve been found ‘guilty’ on bringing back the stamp bug in your life
Very rarely these days; mainly because the collection has grown so “big” (120 stock books or so) and it’s located in ‘non-public’ parts of our home… Usually it’s just me & my misses going through the albums. The kids want to join in the fun sometimes. Some collectors and family have seen small parts of it too.
Usually me and misses discuss about the topics on stamps, or places/countries…Non-collectors usually amaze about the number of stamps, the shapes, countries etc.
Rarely… The main is reason like you say: it makes the collection look clumsy easily… The further I’ve gone with the art of building/maintaining a collection, the more determined I am that stockbooks are perfect for storage & inventory purposes. But for public display purposes it has to be something else (like these digital album pages I’ve built – likely I’ll make a photobook out of these once I have every space filled).