Free Stamp Album Pages

Despite the ease of stock albums and the convenience of stock pages, I still love the charm of printed album pages. These help me organize my collection with clearly identified gaps and goals to completion. You can use mounts or hinges to add stamps to these album pages. Print them on at least 160 gsm pages and or buy specially designed pages and add them to ring binders.

But how do you get these album pages? Well, most are not free but there are still many sources on the Internet where you can get free and paid album pages. I list some of these sources that you might useful.

• BidCurios has a few free stamp album pages along with their paid album pages. You can checkout their album pages here.
• Stamp Albums Web — this is perhaps one of the most comprehensive sites for album pages. You need a paid subscription of about US$ 40 per year for unlimited download (please check website for most current prices), which might actually be not too bad to get almost everything you want.
• The Philosateleian U.S. Stamp Album — This seems to be a site with comprehensive USA stamp album pages. Last I checked it had pages listed till 2018, along with non-postal stamps. All album pages are free.
• Dead Country Stamps and Banknotes — A very niche site that focuses on collecting stamps and currency from countries which no longer exist — often defined as a “dead country”. Michael Adkins, who runs this site, has provided some great album pages of these countries. He is in the process of creating these album pages so you may not find everything you are looking for but I would recommend bookmarking this site and subscribing to its RSS feed (are these still a thing these days??).
• theStampWeb — from the makers of AlbumEasy, the site provides links to free user contributed Stamp Album pages to download.
• Hamilton Stamp Club — The site seems to provide many album pages created by William E. Steiner (of Stamp Albums Web stampalbums.com fame). Enjoy these free album pages while they are still available.
• American Philatelic Society — Provide free album pages of USA stamps, though it’s not as comprehensive as Philosateleian site. APS downloads section has some pages for thematics/topical collections too.
• The Precancel Stamp Society — You can download Town and Type albums and Dated albums of US Precancel stamps.
• Mostly Classics — Free album pages of USA classic stamps. The site also offers Iceland stamp album pages.
• Great Britain Machins — One of the best sites for GB Machin stamps. The basic Machin album is free and can get you started on your Machin collection. Other advanced and specialized albums are available at cost.
• BR Stamp — Free Brazil stamp album pages in Portuguese.
• FRANCE-TIMBRES.NET — Free France album pages, site is in French. Seems to have album pages for years 1981 onwards. Please explore the site for more options that might be available.
• iBolli Album Pages — The album pages are files, freely downloadable, containing boxes and writings that allow the insertion and sorting of Italian and Italy colonies stamps.
• Stamp Hacks — A good collection of Ukraine album pages. The site also provide other country album pages and some interesting links, including hacks to the Mystic Heirloom pages.
• World Stamp Albums — This is probably the most comprehensive stamp album pages website I have come across. This is Dr. Cheng Chang’s web site of world stamp collection by country. The site does NOT provide downloadable album pages. However it does provide images of album pages, which seems to be of the right size. I am guessing you could print these images as album pages. I haven’t tried this but if you do try it out, do drop a note in comments below.
• The China Stamp Society, Inc — Free stamps pages of mainly Taiwan Republic of China and some other provinces.
• Great Britain Stamp Album Pages 2016 — Seems to be a fairly comprehensive collection of album pages of United Kingdom and Crown Dependencies. This YouTube video might be of help when trying to understand The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England.

In spite of all these free resources, you might still want to create your own album pages. Perhaps you want specialized album pages for your topical collection, or another specialized collection that you can’t find only. You can use the following to create your own album pages:

• AlbumEasy — An HTML-type markup language to create album pages. Has a learning curve but once you get the hang of it, you’ll love it. It’s not very visual but compiling a page into a PDF and viewing it is quite easy and simple to do.
• FreeStampAlbum.com — This is an online album page creator. I haven’t used it but it looks like a basic page creator with not too many layout options available.

Charm of Used Stamps

Earlier this year India post released a set of 16 stamps as one miniature sheet on head gears of India. I did buy as part of my regular buys, but I wasn't too kicked about the stamps. They were too colorful, too big, too pompous for my liking.

And then during my regular visits to the flea market where I rummage through heaps of paper to find used stamps, I managed to find 15 of the 16 stamps in their used version. Suddenly I am liking this set a lot. Perhaps it is the old world charm of used stamps that catches my fancy. It is the thrill of finding used setenent stamps and blocks and even singles that tell a story of usefulness of the stamp and its contribution to getting a message across for someone. My son once said that to him collecting stamps is as lame as collecting Pokemon cards. Well buying mint stamps from the comfort of my home sure feels like that. Collecting used stamps however is whole different game in my view. So much more fun and now a days even more challenging.

50 Best Philately Accounts to Follow on Instagram

I completed a year on Instagram a few months back and it's been a fun journey sharing my collection there. I have found many other interesting philatelists on Instagram. I am compiling the list of best 50 Philately accounts to follow on Instagram. I started with preparing a list of best 25 accounts but just couldn't get myself to stop at 25.

I have tried to not include professional large philately dealers, except one, Stanley Gibbon, for tradition. I also tried to not include pure dealers or sellers though many included in the list are also selling their stamps on eBay. Mostly I tried to include accounts that are specialized (a country or a theme), have great images, have some description and detail of what they are posting, and some really interesting quirky look at stamps too.

Feel free to write your comments on this post in case there are some that I should have considered and missed.

S No.	Instagram account	Why you should follow this account
1.	give.it.laldy Give It Laldy	One of the best sources for El Salvador stamps and philatelic material (covers, envelopes etc.). Provides very useful commentary with the pics shared.
2.	stanleygibbons Stanley Gibbons	If you are a philatelist, you don’t need a reason to follow this account.
3.	empirepostss Empireposts	One of the best feeds of British empire stamps, mainly British stamps, but some colonies too.
4.	khalidmlk Khalid Malik	Some great Pakistani stamps and stamps and covers from Middle Eastern countries.
5.	tiresias1000 Tiresias	A quirky funny look at stamps of people with facial hair.
6.	letterstoursula	One of the most creative postal projects, sending letters addressed to Ursula in different parts of the world to incorrect addresses and collecting the returned mail.
7.	empirecollectables empirecollectables.com	Great collection of British covers and stamps
8.	rainydaystamps Peter	Classic stamps from all over the world, and a few post-boxes too.
9.	mintneverhinged Mint Never Hinged	One of the best collection of graphic design stamps.
10.	brazilianstamps Brazilian Stamps	As the name says, awesome and beautiful Brazilian stamps. One stamp at a time, nice clean images.
11.	ravikumar_babu Ravikumar Babu	Not a purely philately account, more a photography and philately account. Follow for detailed background information about the stamps he posts.
12.	royal_philatelic Ghasem Safari	Nice collection of Iran stamps and other postal stationery. Write mainly in Arabic, but Instagram translation feature comes handy for this.
13.	mhd1976	Great stamps and postal stationery mainly from the Middle Eastern countries.
14.	asfe1899 Asfe1899	Some unique stamps from strange lands that don’t always exist
15.	graphilately G R A P H I L A T E L Y	Graphic design stamps
16.	krebsphil Phil Krebs	Tiny little rats (I think) and a very organized stamp collection in album pages (mainly Singapore but many others too).
17.	philately_laos Eli	The best collection of Laos stamps and covers
18.	undust_the_beauty Undust the Beauty	Great collection of classic stamps
19.	dailymachin Machin Collector	How can I not include a Machin account? Sharing the colors of Machins.
20.	myphilately	Shares USA stamps and other items, typically one stamp at a time.
21.	stampscapetown stampscapetown	South African stamps, one stamp at a time
22.	crownfdc Crownfdc	Some great postal covers from Great Britain
23.	danskefrimaerker PostNord	A snapshot of Danish art, culture, nature and history through stamps from Denmark. Great quality images.
24.	lada.makar	Detailed statistical information about the stamps shared, one stamp at a time.
25.	philatelyandhistory filateliaehistoria	Covers and FDCs from Spain
26.	philategram Philategram	Encourages philatelists to use hashtag #philategram to share their pics. Curates and
27.	reptifibian_stamps liz	Interesting collection of reptile and amphibian stamps
28.	philatelicexpert PhilatelicExpert	Classic stamps, errors and forgery with detailed information about them. Very useful information about rare and expensive stamps.
29.	filateliaentreamigos Filateliaentreamigos	Interesting stamps, covers and other memorabilia from a personal collection.
30.	stamp.share	World stamps, clean images with information about the stamps.
31.	dunvr1 dunvr1	Mainly classic GB used covers (lots of Penny Reds and other classics here).
32.	tamperewanhatpostikortit Tampere in old postcards | FI	Beautiful classic used postcards with detailed historical information about them.
33.	collectoroid Alladdin	Sharing a personal collection and some interesting eBay bids.
34.	world_wide_stamps worldwidestamps	A great collection of mostly European classic stamps
35.	philatelyisfun Philately is FUN!	Great collection of world stamps, mainly older ones. Plus there’s a cat around, I mean who doesn’t like cats.
36.	punkphilatelist The Punk Philatelist	Don’t miss to read her blog posts accompanying here stamps. Lives true to her name.
37.	mad_about_stamps mad_about_stamps	Some great pics and corresponding description of the stamps. Mostly classic worldwide stamps.
38.	dustin15_collections	Some interesting postmarks from postcrossing worldwide.
39.	dapperphilatelist Brendan	Worldwide stamps, nice clean images
40.	pmacpage Poor Man's Art Collection	What an interesting way to describe stamp collecting – Poor man’s art collection. I do believe there’s art in stamps. Follow for Indian stamps.
41.	collectornerd Collectornerd	Mainly stamps but also some other collectibles like covers and bonds/share certificates. Mainly Canada and USA items.
42.	funpostmarks Mark Postington	If you thought Japanese stamps were cool wait till you see the postmarks
43.	carly_stroll Carly's Postmark Collections	Some really interesting Japanese postmarks
44.	bellamarksart Carolyn Marks	Custom First Day Covers from USA
45.	deanboswellphilately Dean Boswell	True to his bio, “Every stamp tells a story”, Dean tells you the story of every stamp he posts.
46.	hassan_alhadethi Hassan Al Hadethi	I have a feeling that Hassan hasn’t taken to Instagram completely yet. I have seen his Facebook posts, he is definitely a philatelist to follow and watch out for on IG.
47.	nurbriefmarken	Stamps from around the world with explanation.
48.	mcs70 Carolina Saheli	A personal collection of stamps
49.	dailystamps Daily Stamps 📚✉	A worldwide collection of stamps
50.	theamateurphilatelist Amateur Philatelist	For compiling this list… 😉