Your Album Choice
Your Album Choice
Your Album Choice
Before you purchase your first stamp album you should have some plan in your mind, even just a few thoughts and inclinations, on the likely progress and eventual scope of your collection. Most beginners buy or are given a monster packet of stamps and a printed album with a page for every country. Sooner or later you will run out of space and the surplus stamps of some countries will be scattered untidily on other pages. In these circumstances, enthusiasm may flag as the only solution is a larger album with all the work of rearranging your stamps!
Your choice of a suitable album is important. It shouldn't be too small – for obvious reasons – and not too large because unless you have a very large collection and anticipate buying many more stamps, your existing stamps will be greatly extended and give your collection a sparse appearance. Printed albums – those with printed country headings at the top of each pages – can be obtained fastbound (like a book) or with loose-leaf ring-fitting binders. The great advantage of the loose-leaf system is that the leaves can be rearranged – and extra leaves added – as you wish. The 'one-country' printed albums usually have a space for each stamp, possibly illustrated with periodic supplements.
Obviously, the affixing of the mounts by hand is a time-consuming process and hence such albums are more expensive than those which require you to affix the mounts yourself. For many collectors the convenience is well worth the extra outlay. For the 'do-it-yourself' collector who prefers to arrange and 'write-up' the collection on blank leaves there are many splendid albums in the Gibbons range to choose from. They are priced according to quality, size and capacity, and the binders are springback (which open wide to release the leaves), ring-fitting or peg-fitting.
Multi-ring albums have the advantage of lying flat when the album is opened, while it is usually necessary to take out spring-back and peg-fitted leaves when working on them. You can prepare your own country headings for blank leaves, or you can buy the special booklets of gummed country-name labels. Blank albums are of course especially suitable for thematic collecting – the pursuit of a certain subject or theme (such as birds, flowers or transport) – where the arrangement of the stamps entirely depends on the theme and its sub-divisions.
'Stamp Starter Packs' are an inexpensive way of starting a stamp collection. They include an album, stamps, magnifier, tweezers and hinges
Arranging Your Stamps
The essence of a good stamp arrangement is neatness – stamps placed squarely in the spaces provided for them or in level, tidy rows on a blank leaf. It sounds simple – and indeed it is – but it does require care and thought. Some printed albums have stamp 'squares' in rows across the album page. Usually these are big enough to accommodate the majority of stamps which are invariably rectangular – horizontal or vertical – in shape. Larger stamps will extend beyond the confines of the square and in such cases the printed background should be ignored, with two stamps taking up the space of three squares. Personal preference and ingenuity should be employed!
Index
Introduction
One Country Style
The Collector's Toolbox
Choosing an Album
Stamp hinges
For the average collection, gummed stamp hinges are the most convenient to use. These are small slips of gummed paper, which attach the stamp to the album page – just fold down about a quarter of the hinge, gummed-side outwards, and lightly moisten the narrow folded portion with the tip of your little finger. Attach this portion to the back of the stamp at the top, just below the perforations and then moisten the lower part of the 'flap' and place the stamp in its appropriate place and press down. The best hinges are 'peelable', but only after they have completely dried out, so if the stamp is crooked or in the wrong place, leave it a day before attempting to remove it, otherwise you may damage the back of the stamp or part of the album page.
Transparent Mounts
The alternative to using hinges is the system of transparent mounts – gummed 'pockets' or strips – which employ the 'slip-in' principle with transparent fronts and black or clear backing, tailored to fit your stamp and sold in condiment singles or strips. The advantage of these is that you can keep your unused stamps in pristine mint condition, which most collectors (and dealers) now consider to be essential.
Balance and symmetry
The monotony of page after page of uniform rows of stamps can be avoided by paying attention to balance and symmetry. Bizarre and fanciful layouts should be avoided – invariably they waste space and lack symmetrical cohesion. Some sets of stamps contain irregular shapes and in such cases the usual order of face value (lowest to highest) can be varied row by row – horizontal designs in one row, verticals on another, or a blanked mixed row.
Country names or other page headings should be uniform throughout the album and sufficient space should be left above and below the rows of stamps for sub-headings and captions if it is your intention to write-up the collection. It is generally preferable to complete the written work before you mount the stamps (even if you haven't got all of them).
Branching Out
If you wish to develop your stamp collection on more specific lines than simply accumulating stamps, there are various ways in which you can pursue a serious philatelic study.
The specialist is a mature student of stamps, their design and printing, their history and postal significance, devoting his attention to one particular country, or even to one period of a country's issues, its postal history and postmarks. It follows that a good knowledge of the four principal methods of printing stamps – recess or line-engraving, typography or 'letterpress', lithography and photogravure (a form of recess printing) is one of the necessary qualifications to becoming a philatelist.
But that can be for the future…
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