layout for topicals.

[keeperseeker]

Ok , where can i find some ideals for organizing and laying out topical sheets? I am interested in birds trains boats and a couple of others.   Some example sheets,,,or experience,,,or where to look if this info is already here.
thank you.

[Admin Bear]

Well first sorry for the delay in responding.. this is really a wide open topic though..

topical collections tend to follow the method best suited to the creator (you).. for example i use a world wide album with quadrilled pages for my Ships on Stamps collection and place the stamps on the pages made for each country.. there is little to know rhyme or reason to the order aside from by country.

In my Butterflies on Stamps collection they are placed in a stock book in the order in which i receive them and there is no other order to the entire book.

Birds on Stamps is a joint venture with my 9 year old daughter and we place them by country and lay out the page by what looks appealing in the moment..

I have met other collectors who place the stamps in chronological order of issue, by catalog number, by color, alphabetical by scientific names, the list goes on and on..

We even have a member here who designs a page for each individual stamp (these look AMAZING!!)..

I know this makes everything about as clear as mud but then again welcome to the hobby ...

[Deleted]

I do musical instruments in sets, and no particular order between sets except I have grouped together all the stamps for the J S Bach tercentenary showing 17th/18th century Western instruments. My other mounted topical collections are composers and authors, and in each case I have gone for alphabetical listings by name, with, for composers, separate pages for composers who appear most frequently on stamps (Bach, Mozart, etc).

For topics like birds, I think you need to decide whether you want to keep sets together. If you do, then that points to mounting them by country. Unless you are very scientific, I would not myself go for mounting birds alphabetically by species, but there is a half-way house where you could, for instance, put all eagle stamps together, all owls together etc.

Trains and ships: by country is the simplest. There is an alternative option of using broad categories - eg steam trains, more recent trains, big sailing ships, small boats, steamships etc, and then within these categories grouping by country. But again you need to decide if you want to keep sets together: if you do, a straightforward by-country arrangement is the answer as some sets will span more than one category.

Not sure if this helps!

[Craig]

Generally, I paginate by sets, many countries to a page. For examples, I refer you to my various topical pages posted in the topicals section.

[kacyds]

The American Philatelic Society (APS) has some free pages on there site. Maybe it will give you some ideas....

stamps.org/Free-Album-Pages

[philatelius]

I collect stamps picturing natural landscapes, and make a customized page for each site or feature. Here are a couple of examples:

  

Making individual pages it not something I would recommend for a larger topical collection just because it takes a lot of time, but it has worked for what I collect (a few hundred stamps acquired over the past 5-7 years).

[keeperseeker]

Thanks for the replies. Wanted to have a plan to serve both practical and aesthetics. Still getting organized.