How to arrange the African albums

Thanks good idea instead of br east, west etc. also is Southern Africa the same as South Africa. Silly question I know 

I've divided mine by region, and then by colonizer and historical period. Neighboring countries often have related histories, or interestingly similar or contrasting stamps.

North Africa, which could be split into the former French possessions and those more oriented to the Middle east: Libya, Egypt, Sudan.

Horn of Africa (Obock, Afars and Issas, Djibouti, French Somali Coast are practically the same place.)

South and East: mostly former British colonies.

West and Central: French zone vs the other colonizers in the area.

Some really good ideas I am going to seriously think about this and ask hubby as they are his stamps do to speak. We started with the As and this one I find horrendous but going to fill in the blanks but not with the high values which are ridiculously priced ££££.  If I win the lottery I might consider. Also if you buy an expensive stamp of over £200 would you go to a dealer to see it first instead of trusting eBay 

It is your collection. What you feel most comfortable with is likely to give you most joy.

Alphabetical order is an easy way to find where you put them as you look at what it says on the stamp and you know where to find others from the same country.

If your stamps are from British Africa and you use a Stanley Gibbons Commonwealth Catalogue, you might consider the same order as the catalogue. But that may involve knowing how countries split or united, and how they changed their names, or drive you mad going through the index of the catalogue and still having trouble finding the section.

Great question marbles. Organization is something I obsess over, to the detriment of actually forming a collection.

There really are no rules, but as others have mentioned, it depends on your goals. Goals for your collection and for what you need from the organization.

If you want to find out what you have for King George VI Bechuanaland, then alphabetical and by set / catalogue order will get you to that stamp quickly.

If you want to collect one of each (excluding the rarities), then having room to fill spaces is a good idea.


I'm following a different path and trying to tell a series of stories with the stamps I have. For the most part, I'm only buying new stamps to improve the story rather than complete a set. So more thematic in spirit, I guess.

So for me, my Africa collection is sorted by UN region (South, Central, East, etc.) and then countries are ordered based on an imaginary route around each region, as part of a Round the World trip. Each country section tries to tell the story of how that area was colonized, gained independence, the people who live there, etc. So I think of colonial stamps as forerunners to the current stamps, much as Nova Scotia stamps are forerunners of Canada.

And yes, that imposes some tricky decisions about what to do with Kenya-Uganda-Tanginyka stamps but oh well.


If you're looking at filling spaces, completing sets, etc. then organizing everything so you can find what you have/need might take a higher priority. But you can't go wrong so long as it makes sense to you and gives you joy.

PS- from a TSF perspective, any method which makes it easy to scan and share pics of what you have is a good system!

I am a worldwide collector,
Organisation is imperative to the speed in which I can pick an album, to update new stamps

This is how I have approached (A very challenging)  Album Location.

Each discrete African postal emission, demands more space in an album (Togo demands possibly 3 albums etc)

I have a database, you may / may not be able to imitate

But it is simplicity itself,   copy the list of countries, and alongside  write the Album to which it belongs
That way you can never lose direction as to where a country lies.

Make it as extensive or simple as you like

Africa

Algeria
Angola
Azores
Basutoland
Bechuanaland Protectorate
Belgian Congo
Benin - Later Dahomey
British Bechuanaland
British Central Africa
British East Africa
British South Africa
Burkina Faso (Upper Volta)
Burundi
Cameroon Cameroun
Cape Verde Islands
Cape Verde Islands
Cape Verde islands
Central African Empire
Central African Republic
Comores Islands
Comoro Islands
Congo (People's Republic of Congo) Populaire
Congo Brazzaville
Congo Kinshasha (Democratic Republic)
Cyrenaica
East Africa and Uganda Protectorates Vol 2
Egypt
Egypt & UAR
Egypt Revenues
Equatorial Guinea
Ethiopia
Fernando Poo
France 05 Congo
France Anjouan
France French West Africa (Occidental)
French Equatorial Africa
French Gabon
French Middle Congo
French Offices Abroad~Egypt
Ghana
Gold Coast
Griqualand West
Guinea Rep
Horta
Inhambane
Italian East Africa
Italy~East Africa
Ivory Coast
Katanga
Kenya
Kenya Uganda Tanganyika
Kenya Uganda Tanzania
Lagos
Lesotho~Basutoland
Liberia
Libya~Tripolotania
Morocco (1956 onwards)
Morocco Agencies (Listed after Great Britain)
Mozambique
Mozambique Company
Namibia (Was South West Africa)
Namibia (Was South West Africa)
Natal & Revenue
Niger
Northern Nigeria
Nyasaland
Nyasaland Protectorate
Nyassa
Nyassa Company
Portuguese Africa
Portuguese Congo
Portuguese Guinea
Rhodesia
Rhodesia and Nyasaland
Rio de Oro
Rio Muni
Rwanda
Saint Thomas and Prince Islands
Sierra Leone
Somali Coast (Afars and Issas) Djibouti
Somalia
Somaliland Protectorate
South Africa 01 (RSA)
South Africa 02 Bophuthatswana
South Africa 03 Ciskei
South Africa 03 Transkei
South Africa 04 Venda
South Africa 07 South Kasai
South Africa 08 South West Africa (Namibia)
South Africa 11 Swaziland
South Africa 12 Tanzania
South Africa 14 Botswana
South Africa 15 Cape of Good Hope (COGH)
South Africa Chad Tchad
South Africa Northern Rhodesia
south africa rev
Southern Nigeria
Southern Rhodesia
Spain Melilla
Spanish Morocco (Tanger)
Spanish West Africa
Stellaland
Sudan
Tanganiyka
Tangier
Togo
Transvaal
Tunisia
Zaire
Zambezia
Zambia
Zanzibar
Zimbabwe

That is an interesting choice. I would never put them there.

The islands are on the junction of the Eurasian, North-American, and African tectonic plates. Geographically there are as many reasons to put them in Africa as there are to put them in North-America or Europe. The nearest mainland is Portugal. The distance to Portugal is about 1,400 kms., whereas that to Morocco is about 1,500 kms.

They were uninhabited until Europeans settled on the islands. Anthropologically, they are in Europe.

They are an autonomous region of Portugal and have never been a country. Politically, they are in Europe as well.



The listing after Great Britain makes sense. These agencies were run first by the post office in Gibraltar and later by the GPO in London. The stamps that retained their Sterling face values became valid postage in the UK.

No offence taken.  (and thanks for your suggestions)
I'll use some of your points Clive 

What is missed, is the intention of the regime, not the perfection, not the tectonic plates, or anything else.

The cynosure is for the reader to pick out what emissions are pertinent to their collection
make a list, and have an adjoining column where their album carrying that collection is held.
 
It could be South Africa discrete, or  French Africa, or whatever
The list covers what I use for the continent of Africa,  and close countries.

It can be segregated as whomever wishes.

This was just a quick subset of the 600 or so countries I have to indicate where the album lies

For example:  My French West Africa Album, lies in a cabinet not far from my France Albums,
no where near Africa, but it has it's own location, and shares the album with other smaller African stamp issuers.

Perhaps a further explanation, is as follows,
I have 5 German Albums
Something turns up in a swap,   German Ephemera,  where do I put it ?

Based on my list strategy   I may find it (place it) in any of the 5 albums
perhaps Album 3   that holds the following

rod222

Do you have the plethora of German stamps overprinted for use in WWII occupied countries and territories in the other 'Germany' albums?

Just the normal ones, sometimes just a page, depending what turns up in swaps.
I follow William Steiner-who follows Scott
east africa
ea Belgian occup
Berlin
China
Morocco
Turkey
Belgian
Estonia
Latvia
Poland
Ukraine
Zante

If someone suggests to put a current country in his 'French Africa' you DO run into trouble when the country was not only a colony of France.

William Steiner nor Scott decides which colonial power a collector assigns his country to when it had more than one colonial power.

Wow a lot to consider on how to do it. As I am not very good at geology we might just start with the alphabet on each country and put africa at the top ie west Africa etc. such a newbie at this.  We do have a lot to sort out.  Thank you all for your suggestions 

Or you can just do it alphabetically and forget about the degree in history.

I can understand the reasoning and, probably, would organise it that way. But I would not call it the easiest way.

To a teen who loves the pics and does not care about the background I would say 'Welcome to the hobby. Just do as you like. Enjoy the hobby and do not feel obliged to do what we have been doing for years and have become entrenched in. You are the future of the hobby. With the years, you will find your style of collecting.'

I have just finished transferring from old albums to new but have not arranged them yet. Some or most are okay where his dad put them ie, South Africa etc. I think we are going to put them alphabetically though with me not being good at geography etc. I have put them in glass pockets to protect the ones not in.  Who thought there was so many stamps lol





if anyone is willing to help please let me know lol