The stamp album for the collector on the go.

The pocket stamp album Cities Amsterdam Canal Houses is a trendy, ultra-slim, ultra-light postage stamp stock book for globe-trotters and collectors on the go. This pocket size stock book is the perfect companion during your trips, fitting in any pocket or purse to protect and transport safely your stamps.

Inspired by mobility, discretion and practicality, the pocket stamp album Cities Amsterdam Canal Houses offers all the advantages of a stock book while on the move:

• high quality, acid-free durable paper (+320gsm) with a 'Ton sur ton' design (black on black) in hot foil print on intense black mat
• Din-A6 size (90x154x4mm) when folded fitting pocket size dimensions.
• 3-panel rolled fold sturdy black cardboard pages with a magnetic clasp closure
• lay flat panel when unfolded
• 5 open ended PVC clear strips on each panel to ease stamp handling
• protective cover flap on each page to prevent stamps on adjacent pages from touching
• less than 50g in weight and 5 mm in height, making it the lightest and slimmest pocket size stock book on the market.
• limited edition number on the clasp panel, to easily distinguish each stamp album

With the pocket stamp album Cities Amsterdam Canal Houses, you will stop carrying heavy stock books at exhibitions, auctions & club meetings. Unlock the album by pulling away the magnetic clasp and unfold the panels to expose the pages and place the valuable stamps you just purchased or those you want to trade.As a collector hunter, bring back stamps from your holidays as souvenirs in this discrete Amsterdam Canal Houses design album. As a gift, its unique cover will enchant your stamp collector friends and relatives.

Not a collector? The pocket stamp album CITIES Amsterdam Canal Houses will be the perfect place to store your postage stamps to send birthday cards, business correspondence, pen-pals letters or postcards.

The pocket stamp album Cities Amsterdam Canal Houses is designed, produced, manufactured, hand-assembled by small craft companies in the Netherlands. Each exemplar is a true unique Amsterdam souvenir you have to bring home.

Amsterdam Canal Houses

Amsterdam is one of Europe’s most picturesque capitals and one of the top 10 attractions of the city are the canal ring and canal houses.

In the past homes for the wealthy, many canal houses are now open as museums: Het grachtenhuis, Museum of the canals, Het Rembrandthuis Museum, Museum van Loon, Willet Holshuysen Museum, Anne Frank Huis, het Bijbels Museum, our Lord in the attic Museum, het Kattenkabinet, Museum of bags and purses. Alongside the main canals are 1550 monumental buildings.

Amsterdam’s Canal Ring/Belt is unique in the world. Its urban development and architectural artwork, as well as the physical expression of the major economic, political and cultural growth of the city took place during the 17th century the city Golden Age . The recognition of the uniqueness of the Canal Ring not only generates international attention for the city, it also frames a promise to maintain the area. In this way, everyone can continue to enjoy the unique living and working conditions of the Canal Ring.

The Amsterdam Canal District is the design at the end of the 16th century and the construction in the 17th century of a new and entirely artificial ‘port city.’ It is a masterpiece of bourgeois architecture, hydraulic engineering, town planning, and a rational programme of construction. It is an innovative, unique and large-scale art work but homogeneous urban ensemble.

The canal district offers Art galleries, cultural centres, offices, hotels, restaurants & bars, and a wide variety of shops. Amsterdam’s picturesque canal district is worth a visit!

Since 1999, the city’s distinctive canal landscape has officially been protected, and in 2010 the Amsterdam Canal Ring was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List. In 2013, the Canal Ring also celebrated its 400th birthday.

Stock books

Collectors have several options for safely storing and displaying their stamp collection. The most popular ones are stockbooks, stockpages in binders, pages in a binder (or album), or approval cards. Usually, stamp collectors maintain their collections in printed stamp albums devoted to their specific collecting interests, such as The Netherlands, Belgium or Germany... While they are a great way of displaying your stamps, the pages have only space for a single copy of a specific stamp. What about all those duplicates that we save for future use, be it trading/swapping or simply hoarding?

Amongst collectors, stockbooks are considered very practical for storing stamps not yet given space in printed albums, as well as keeping duplicates and extra stamps for trading. They are also recommended for starting topical collections or “safe-keeping” your most valuable.

Stockbooks are made of black/white acid-free sturdy cardboard pages, made up with horizontal strips of glassine paper or clear film, into which stamps are placed. The pages, usually double-sided, are bound into book form. The pages are interleaved with a glassine, or clear, sheet to prevent stamps on adjacent pages from touching.
The most popular A4-size stockbooks comprise between 16 and 64 pages. Most manufacturers advertise the number of sides, not the number of hard cardboard pages. Therefore, a stock book advertised as a '16 page' stock book, usually has 8 double sided cardboard pages.

Cover Material can be rigid or padded, with a dull finish, a leather-like finish (leatherette), or real leather. Padded covers and leather covers are more expensive than a rigid, leatherette stock book. The covers are available in several colours to distinguish them.

The binding method is an essential criterion defining the quality of a stock book: from the basic rigid hinged pages, suitable for a small album, to a more expensive double linen hinged pages for a larger stock book. Double linen hinged pages are worthwhile for larger stockbooks, as it helps the pages lie flat at all times.

Most importantly, the stock book must guarantee a safe storage of delicate valuable collectibles with acid-free and sturdy material. The counterpart is the weight and volume, a stockbook takes in your collection.Product Details:

• Limited Edition, unique numbered (1500 ex.)
• Color: ‘ton sur ton’, black on black,
• Design in shiny hot foil print on deep black matte high quality stiff card.
• Pages: 3 pages of 5 rows.
• Magnet closure
• Dimensions: 90x154x4mm (cir. din-A6 format)
• Weight: 40 gram

References:

• Wikipedia.org: Canals of Amsterdam, Canal House, Stock book
• Stamporama.com: FAQ Stamp Albums
• discovertopicalstampcollecting.com: Why You Need Stockbooks To Organize Your Postage Stamps Collections
• linns.com: Stop bad things from happening to your good stamp collection, Janet Klug, 26.09.2011
• linns.com: Use stock books to organize and enjoy your stamp collection, Janet Klug, 12.12.2011