As I've been continuing my albumizing crusade up to about the M-countries, I've had a chance to look back on the four Traveler albums I've filled. There are probably about two albums' worth of original Traveler pages spread across all four binders, at least one of which I bought without pages inside. Originally, like any early collector, I was most likely to collect common stamps that matched the illustrations Mr. H.E. Harris, who it is noted inside the album personally designed the album pages, put on the pages. Then, I'd fill in the blank spaces with more modern or higher-value stamps. I went to my second of four Travelers to snap photos of some sample pages. The top photos shows a good example of an original Traveler album page that I've been able to completely fill with Ghana.
I was able to print some of my own pages, at least a decade or two ago, using a template I found online. However, it's difficult to estimate while randomly printing pages just how many you'll need for a given country's stamps. The template comprised a title block, border, and quadrille background, leaving me free to arrange stamps as I liked. Again, the page gets filled (above) with only a little white-space. I purchased blank quadrille album pages from Canadian Wholesale Supply for a time, both heavy and light paper stock. I'd write in the country name in pencil, again freely arranging in rows on each page:
A few years ago, with template pages and a catalogue in hand, I was able to space the stamps out a little and write in some details on some of the older issues. This was during the long period when I was accumulating stamps, but paralyzed by not being able to check for duplicates and albumize them. I was just filling zip-loc bags labelled for each country. And, this was before I had several years' accumulation of stamps from exchanges that really outweighed the comparatively few stamps I had albumized up to that point. I've since checked each zip-loc bags stamps against each other for duplicates, then checked those against what was already in the album pages. Lots of duplicates emerged for exchanges!
State-of-the-art, almost to the extreme. Looking back on some of the quadrilled pages, there is so little white-space that it's a little claustrophobic! At this point, with a recent incursion into South and Central America, I'll be getting back to albumizing from the N-countries onwards. The four Travelers are quite full, so I'm now looking for a fifth! Placing more stamps per page at least cuts down on the number of pages and gives the viewer lots to look at.
Or to quote an auction listing, "Nothing particular valuable in this collector's album, just a LOT of stamps!"
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