Show your DIY album pages

 Hi, I have unfortunately ... a trivial question

I looked through some Mongolian stamps and found a copy of a 1964 diamond-shaped stamp from the Tokyo Olympics set.  In particular, this gymnast:



Like your stamp, Colnect gives this stamp a dimension of 45mm x 45mm.  And when I measure it, it matches your sketch above.  So, the stamp itself, when measured in its correct diamond orientation, needs a space approximately 63mm x 63mm square, plus however much space you want to allow around the edge of the stamp.

Ryan

I haven't actually printed out just converted, so this should be still considered a draft or proof copy. If you see anything, let me know (I'm aware of outer frame centering being off)

I got 3 denominations on same page as there are only shades and stamps on yellow paper (not referred to as GC)

Next is the 10c Sower on mound... the only denomination (it was apparently not popular. There are two Types and several shades, so it will get apage to itself, and then comes the 10c Semeuse cameé has 3 types, but few shades, so I think I can fit legend and stamps on single page... and then it goes from simple to several varieties/types/colors

I believe for the Sower "series" (all 3 'styles') there is quite a large number of (over 200 color variations  and I'm onlu including  the yellow/GC paper). I use Maury Ceres & Dallay as it  is the most detailed.  Thus far I have  only a few holes to fill thus far. I have been buying lots of just Sowers since last year in preparation for this (much like I did when i put the the GB 1864 penney red plate collection together (I still need 225 and a small few  could use an upgrade  to full/better  perfs),

so yes, pages for the entire series with shades.

i had though about  breaking the 20, 25 and 30 c into separate pages (and I still may)

With the Penny red plates I fir 20 stamps per page 4 rows x 5 each and it makes for full pages. I do like the more spartan appearance, providing I have enough information to know what i am looking at... (which is probably silly as few will probably ever view beyond at a society 'show and tell" or here on a forum)

it would eb far simpler to buy the more 'standardized" pages, but that's like playing Go Fish....

so here's a quick re-format of  just a single denomination per page (in this case 20c)

What do you think?


and darkormex  if you  find you have holes in the 1906 series, let me know, I may well be able to help!

For the most part I use steiners pages, but occasionally I like to "experiment", although I still try to keep with the Steiner style. In this case I wanted a separate page to put these WASA overprinted stamps on, but I wanted to include some kind of graphic or picture of the actual ship. I found a good picture of the ship on the net (Actually a scale model), turned it into a b&w pcture, and lightened it to the point where I could print it in the background, behind the stamp boxes. I really like the result, and will try to create other such special pages.

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try. Unfortunately, it won't help all the pages I've already done (probably over 1000), but it probably won't matter that much since I've already "tweeked" some other things since my first pages, like border and box thicknesses.

What do you guys do with series/issues that are spread-out in the catalogs across several years (or even decades). Do you stick to the catalog order - or keep them together?

Here's a typical example, the last definitive issues of Finland before the Monetary reform in 1963. Coat of arms - Lion design was used for the lower-values - and pictorial designs for the high-values. Most catalogs (all except Facit?) and albums keep them spread. I like to have them kept together, like this:

blaamand: I am of the same opinion as stainlessb! Keep them together. Iceland issued some pretty flower and bird series over a number of years. I keep those together too!

spain1850 - Thanks! Opinions are good, always interesting to hear what others are doing. I see your point too. A good example would be the QE2 machins. If having detailed pages for all the machins together in one group, it would be like an album in itself. Could be somewhat tiring when viewing the collection to leaf through pages and pages of the same design.

I am considering the same for when I will make my pages for France. The 'Sower' (Semeuse) is spread over several decades, a few new denominations or new colours issued more or less every year. Maury have them grouped in several "batches", with other issues in between. I don't know yet if I want to follow Maury or have them in one huge group. If having them all together, they will span many pages when including all the types, multitude of shades, varieties, papers etc. Could it become a bit boring to look at? Hmm, yet to be decided.

On the opposite side there are more limited series, all with the same paper, watermark, printing etc, that naturally belongs together. Example given the Finnish series (in my post) with the old denomination. Scott has these pictorial issues spread according to year of issue, Michel and AFA spread the low-values likewise - all of which makes no sense to me. FACIT has taken the sensible approach and collected them as one group.

I usually follow Scott since I use Steiner pages so grouped how Scott groups but I have redone some pages to regroup. I tried doing it once with my US collection (gather all Great Americans) but it turned out to be too much trouble as it has a ripple effect on pages impacted.

Steiner grouped a lot of the early Greenland issues together. Many commemoratives from the 1970s -1990s were in fact part of a series, even though they were issued as singles. Grouping them together makes for a far better album layout, if you ask me. Steiner have since stopped groupings, as he went to a yearly release schedule.

I guess it varies from country to country, but making conscious choices about what to do for each, is what makes custom albums superior to commercial offerings (or even Steiner). 


Example: