Minkus Master Global for worldwide - now up to 30 albums. (I'm gonna quit @ 36 'cause that's all the bookshelf space I have for that album set) Harris Classic for US mint - 4 albums Harris Liberty for US used- 4 albums Harris Canada - 3 albums Harris for US plate blocks - 8 albums Super Safe 3-ring binders for mint sheets - 8 albums
It is so important to make sure you have them in the right place because I have lost so many after putting them into normal albums that stuck to the books and ruined the stamps. Luckily I had a few collections and my favourite ones were kept elsewhere and are still looking good today.
Down here in Louisiana the humidity gets over 100% on a regular basis in the summer and it's quite a challenge to keep things like stamps from sticking. It's quite discouraging when I pick up one of my older albums from when I was younger & find the stamps stuck to the pages. And then, just last year I had left my US album on the floor of my bed room leaning up against the wall. The reason I did this was because someone on another stamp forum had said it was a bad idea to lay your albums down because terrible things would happen to the stamps. Well the next morning I neglected to pick up my album and we had a super thunderstorm that flooded just enough to get carpet in my bedroom saturated. My album, leaning up straight against the wall soaked up water all morning. The good news was about 99% of my mint stamps in the album were in mounts that did an excellent job of protecting them. The used just got a re-soaking. So now I'm looking for a good US album.
I've been a stamp collector over 60 years now, about 40 years ago I got tired of updating my albums. So I started using the see thru stock sheets and kept them in a three ring binder. Now I've expanded this idea and have 46 three ring binders. I can arrange and rearrange very easy. My main effort is cancel research, plate varieties, unusual usages, stock certificates, revenue on documents/instruments, etc., and more etc.
that sounds great and I love the ring binders with the sheets but I have nowhere to put them. When you have limited space I find that everything gets shoved in a corner somewhere and is forgotten about until you one day realise where you put it and by then it is ruined. That is what happened to parts of my collection so I have taken my favourites and framed them.
Tasha, I used to have a similar problem, with a house full of kids, pets. Then the kids grew up, my wife died, and I retired, gave me house to my kids, moved to Rural Nevada, now I have a stamp room. Plenty of room for my stamps and binders. Room for the grandkids visits. Only trouble now is the wild donkeys, they want to get into my watermelon patch!
HAHAHA! That seems to be a nice worry to have. A stamp room how fantastic! and the grandchildren must love it when you show them all the collections that you have. Im sure they love the donkeys too.
Grandkids do not go into the Stamp Room. Had a previous bad experience with kids and my stamps! No body likes the donkeys out here, they are trouble. If there was only a few it would not be a problem. But the next town over the mountain, the ranchers round of the donkeys, then drop them off in the town where I live. The donkeys cause a lot of damage around here.
Oh true I can imagine what grandchildren would do to a stamp collection so not a good idea to let them go in until they are old enough to want a stamp collection of their own. Donkeys are terrible if they are that much of a nuisance, perhaps you should google what kind of plant will keep them away from your land.
I'm using black Prinz pages with 7 strips per page. What do people think about the question whether to use single sided pages or double sided? On the face of it, double sided would take up less room on the shelf and be cheaper. But is there a downside to them?
I collect Middle East, North Africa and Horn of Africa and am starting on Albania. I have used Ka Be, Scott and Minkus albums but non of them have space for the cindrella stamps, forgeries and odd items. I now create my own pages on the computer so I can have each issue in chronological order and add notes easily.
