During the course of collecting South Korean stamps since 1983 the problem of how to store the collection is always a difficult one. Stamp album page published by various companies are the traditional method for keeping a collection for easy access and viewing. Using Showgard or comparable stamp mounts preserves the stamps well but the album solution is fraught with problems. Updates are sporadic and often full of errors. The quality of the printing, paper and captions are often very poor.
After considerable thought I decided the best solution was to create my own stamp album pages. This means all the documentation can be in whatever language you select (English in my case) and customized to the contents of the collection. Using a Canon iP7200 photo printer with Neenah heavy weight 96 bright white paper (65 lb. or 175 gm/m²) the 8-1/2” x 11” album pages are of excellent quality. Once the stamps are mounted each page is than placed in a clear plastic sheet protector (C-Line No. 00010) and then put into a three-ring binder.
Thank you for the ‘make your own Korea pages’. They may be beyond my limited computer use knowledge but seems a good idea…
Thank you for your time to the Korean Stamp Society, I always read the articles and think I learn something from every edition.
Glenis Hill
Thanks for your article on designing Korean stamp album pages. I’ve been testing the album page creation waters with my little toe for a while and your article inspires me to jump into the deep end now.
Pete Silvers
My only recommendation if you decide to use a PC software product is to select one that allows the manipulation of stamp images on a grid. That way you can space the stamps exactly how your want them on a page and the album pages will have a very professional look. That is the primary reason I decided to use a simple engineering diagram package like MS Visio. Another important issue is to make sure you printer can handle heavy weight paper. I am using 65 lb. stock and it works great for mounting the stamps using Showgard mounts. Good luck.
Years ago I created my own stamp pages. These were not for Korean stamps, but for Polish exile government stamps. However, the problem with doing the printing yourself is that you need heavier paper to create the proper background on which to put the stamps (in the plastic envelopes of course), but it is exactly that type of paper which has the tendency to curl up (for lack of a better term) when run through a laser printer because of the warmth or an inkjet printer because the paper is wet with ink while being turned around in what is usually a small printer. So how to avoid this problem?
I am using a Canon iP7220 ink jet printer with 66 lb. Neenah 96 bright white paper. It goes through the printer without jamming or other problems. The paper stock is very heavy and there is no curling either from the printer or when the Showgard mounts are attached. If one uses a paper of less weight then the quality of the album page will diminish significantly. Regular printer paper will not work.
Not exactly a stamp album page, probably from an exhibition, but here is another solution to the question “How to show my stamps?”:
The source is quite interesting: it is from a page from the National Archives of Korea website showing all sorts of stamp related items.
I find all of these album page comments to be very interesting. One of the reason, I love the older issues is that each stamp stands alone separately and hence it helps me in laying out the album pages. For recent multiple issues, I switched to stock
sheets, and therefore the presentation is much less attractive.
John Talmage
You mention mounting your stamps before inserting the page in a plastic sleeve protector. Do you mount with a product such as Showgard? When I was at PhilaKorea 1984 Prinz had a brochure with mounts specifically sized for Korean stamps. Now when I look online I can not find these sizes and when I ask dealers at stamps shows I just get a blank look. I try to use Showgard in the closest sizes I can find and this works well for the 1960-1980 stamps. Nowadays there are so many different sizes and shapes (hexagons) that finding a mount that is close in size is difficult. What are you using when you mount your odd size shapes, stamps with selvage, or souvenir sheets?
I have AlbumGen by SoftPro and will use that to create my pages. It can make custom sized shapes and arrange them on the page. I still need to figure out how to get Korean script on the pages. I’ve been using Microsoft Korean IME to generate Hangul script and Chinese characters in word documents.
Thank you Mr. Spanjersberg for the interesting Korean National Archives Link.
Pete Silvers
I use Showgrad mounts for all of my Korean stamps. It takes a rather large investment in Showgard mounts to have all the correct sizes but there are very few issues that a proper mount sized can not be found. For unique shaped stamps I just get as close as I can. I order my Showgard mounts from https://www.ihobb.com/c/STAMP_MOUNTS_HINGES.html.
Once the stamps are mounted I put each page in clear sheet protectors. https://www.amazon.com/C-Line-00010-Traditional-Polypropylene-Heavyweight/dp/B000V6WXOE This is probably overkill but it does provide another layer of protection and if a Showgard mount gets lose the stamp is still easy to find.
I have been using this album system now for nearly 20 years and have not found any other alternatives that suit my needs any better. I do not speak Korean so the Hangul script is not an issue for me.
Hi All, I used the Davo Easy Mounts made in the Netherlands. https://www.davo.nl/en/our-products . They are expensive, but they are so easy to use with the tiny self-adhesive on the back and they are supposed to be of the highest quality in protecting stamps. One of the premier album makers in the USA, Palo Albums, uses them for all the hinge-less albums. https://paloalbums.com/products/davo-easy-mounts I used them for all my self-made pages. There is a video on this link to show what they look like and how to use: https://www.philatelicly.com/davo-easy-mount-64-139mm-10x-pack?v=6cc98ba2045f
Thank you for the information. Is it possible to download the pages? So I don’t have to start from scratch.
Thanx, Ramses
I am not aware of way to download album pages. Each page in my albums are custom made for the particular stamps being mounted on that page. Since there are so many pages I do not keep the computer files once they are in the album since they can always be recreated later on if necessary.
I created my own album by using the application AlbumEasy v4.1.0. It doesn’t have any catalogue inside, but therefore I download the csv-list from Colnect.com and import it in AlbumEasy. After that you can manually change it. If finished you can generate a PDF-file and print this out. If interested, I can send it.
Hi Ramses, please show us what these pages looks like. I am especially interested in what the pages look like with stamps on them. In recent decades more and more postal authorities (even the more serious ones….) have started to create more and more philatelic “products”. Since many collectors are “completists” they tend to buy most or all of it. But how to put all these strange sizes and shapes on such pages? And in such a way that you won’t end up with dozens of pages for just one year of stamps?
You can upload your own images through https://koreastampsociety.org/activity/ (if you type anything in the text box a blue icon will become visible; this icon is the upload icon). Or alternatively you can send me a message through the member system to discus how to include images.