US Printed stamp albums

[Deleted]

I may have the chance to get a printed Liberty album for US stamps to 1980 at a good price from a UK seller, in good condition with loads of stamps and extras. Do any StampBears have experience of these albums? Their good and bad points?

eBay sellers often have other printed albums for the USA, notably Victory albums. These look less good. Postage to the UK on the much more expensive Scott albums (hardly ever available from UK sources) would be prohibitive.

[khj]

Just to verify, this would be the blue Harris Liberty album in 2-post configuration with white pages? Up to 1980, I believe will all be in 1 volume. I think total now is in 3 volumes at least, but I don't have past the 3rd volume.

Be forewarned, Harris posts and binders are some of the worst. They aren't very durable even though they might look rather shiny. Once they go, punch new holes and switch over to commercial office binders.

The value will be in the stamps, not the album. The Harris Liberty album, brand new, is not that expensive.

If you have any specific questions, I can pull out the ones I have and try to give you some answers.

[samb]

I agree with khj, I had a Liberty album years ago and never liked it, and don't know anyone who has. I'd pay only what you think the stamps are worth.

[khj]

The Victory Album (by Grossman) has nice pages, but it's really way too old. If you have any stamps from the past 40 years, you will end up mounting them on blank pages. For those of you familiar with Minkus and White Ace pages, the Grossman pages are styled like those, and includes fancy (or tacky, depending how you see it) stylized page border.

I wish I could give you some advice, but I realize that buying US albums here in the US is very different from buying albums in UK. European albums tend to be of MUCH better quality than US-produced albums. Availability in the US of all types of used albums is far greater, so collections in used albums tend to cheaper here in the US than in Europe.

I think the question would be, what type of US are you interested in collecting? Mint or used? Time range? That would help rule out some of the used albums. If you are interested in used US up to 1980, then the Harris Liberty is sufficient -- just remember the binder and posts aren't durable unless you treat them with TLC. If you plan on adding more modern US, you really should consider printing your own Steiner pages. JMHO.

Again, any specific questions, feel free to ask. I do have a number of different US albums that I have kept over the years for reference after I scavenged the stamps.

[MikeC99]

@michaelcayley, I also have 2 used Liberty albums that I got when I started collecting after I retired. They have light weight pages and are a two post setup. The binders are not very durable. Both of them are falling apart where the front cover meets the back. The only reason I continue to use the binders is because I got three Liberty binders from a friend for only a few dollars so I will treat them with kid gloves.
Mike

[khj]

Yes, replacement Harris Liberty binders here in NA are pretty easy to come by. I suspect in Europe, it is a different story. That was the reason for my warning to Michael.

How bad are they? I actually have kept Harris binders/posts as spare parts! Nobody wants the album pages!

Ditto what Mike said about the binder joint. That's exactly where most of them fail. Regarding the album posts, they bend, so don't pack the binder too heavily. Also, the screw in the post is way too short, so the thread does strip if you pack too heavily.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the advice, good people. Yes, it is a one-volume album and what you say explains why it is going quite cheap. It's not worth buying just for the stamps: I can source US stamps a bit more cheaply elsewhere when I feel ready.

[tomd]

Me, I use the American Heirloom Collection of United States Stamps a 3 volume set from Mystic Stamps. I have seen some pages from the Liberty album for US stamps and others and the Mystic one is the best as far as albums go. So I would agree with the stamps is the value of the buy for you not the album. Now this is my point of view

[zepherusbane]

Looks like you already had the answers you were looking for but I would add that I have two of these, one that was mine when I was a kid (through 1980) and one that my father gave me a year or two ago that he had used for his collection around the same timeframe. I took the pages out of the album and punched them for a normal sized 3 ring binder. To use them in a normal binder, I also had to trim about 3/4 of an inch from the album pages as they were too tall to fit. I'm still using those pages for years I haven't yet created my own custom pages. I wouldn't recommend them for an album expected to be the primary go forward plan.

[khj]

Apr 9, 2016 12:28:34 GMT -5 zepherusbane said:

I took the pages out of the album and punched them for a normal sized 3 ring binder. To use them in a normal binder, I also had to trim about 3/4 of an inch from the album pages as they were too tall to fit. I'm still using those pages for years I haven't yet created my own custom pages.

That's EXACTLY what I did with my Harris pages!!! I keep them in 2 zipper binders that I bought on clearance -- serves as both binder & dust cover.

[cbavier]

I have the Minkus with the fancy scrolled page borders my Parents bought me when I was 13 years old. I'm almost 71 now. I now use the Mystic "American Heirloom" three volumes set which I have expanded to seven Volumes now. Mystic's is the best Album set IMO. One thing I would recommend anybody do is to purchase blank pages to color match your Album Pages and copy the new blank pages to get the Border on the new blank pages. I bought a couple packages from Mystic and they already had the border on them for my "American Heirloom Collection". I bought blank paper from Staples and copied the border on them from my Harris and Scott Canadian Albums. My Harris has been expanded from two Albums to three and my Scott Album set from three Volumes to five. Too many stamps in an album will destroy the binders. It's better to add the Binders before the fact than after a Binder is destroyed.

[darkormex]

I have used the Scott Minuteman since I was a kid and am now up to 4 volumes. I stopped buying the supplements, however, more than several years ago and now print Steiner pages instead. Supplementing albums with updated pages became such a money waster. By the way, Steiner has free US pages starting 2005 as a free download...

My Minuteman binders are the old style with a picture of a minuteman on the cover from the Revolutionary War....thinking about it perhaps not a good choice for my British friend, @michaelcayley....

...don't mention the war....

[cbavier]

darkormex do you have the link for the Steiner Pages? Hey thanks anyway. I found the Home page. I knew I had it at one time. I still had it bookmarked from four or five years ago.

[philatelius]

I used the Harris Liberty album as a teenager, and it was actually what inspired me to create my own stamp album pages. Whatever version I had included spaces for singles and se-tenant blocks or something along those lines, and I didn't collect blocks. I didn't care for the empty spaces...and the rest, as they say, is history.

I also seem to remember the binder being a weak spot, though it has been years since I used it.

If you're collecting only pre-1980 U.S., it's probably okay, but I'd imagine you could find a newer edition much, much cheaper than what it would cost to buy supplements to bring it up to date.

[Craig]

I used the Scott National (it was entirely satisfactory and not so expensive then) until about 1970 when I ended collecting for the second time and sold my collections. Never bought another U.S. stamp album again, although i admit to being tempted, and now I simply make my own pages to my liking, avoiding the display of empty spaces.

[Ron]

I started with a Minuteman album and quickly outgrew it and replaced it - in less than two years. At that time I opted for a 2-post Liberty binder and the pre-printed pages. So far my binders have remained in very good condition but I'm still not crazy about the paper - just too thin for my liking. I've seen and had hands on a Mystic album and ditto with the pages being too flimsy for my liking.

The thought of scrapping my current Liberty albums and opting to create and print my pages has crossed my mind many times and weighs heavy on my philatelic soul still. What's stopped me is the daunting task of all those pages to create virtually from scrap and all the printing - heavy time consumption.

I'm still tossing back and forth the idea of sticking with the Liberty, finding a whole new album or designing and printing my own pages. I have to admit the idea of pages designed for my collection rather than collecting based on what someone else printed on a page is quite appealing.