The Scott Progressive and Annual Albums
I'm going to take a detour before talking about the Vintage Reproductions reprinting of the Brown albums to discuss Scott's Annual Albums and the mysterious Progressive Albums. Today's printed albums are largely loose-leaf and therefore amenable to updating through annual supplements. But updating bound albums, like the Browns, was more convoluted. As mentioned in the earlier posts, many of these albums could be purchased loose-leaf but at a much higher cost than the hardbound versions. Although I have no hard data on this, I assume that the paucity of loose-leaf Browns on eBay demonstrates how few were sold.
In any event, in addition to interim editions of the Twentieth Century Browns published every few years, Scott also started a series of single year albums that could be used in conjunction with the Browns or other albums or on their own. The earliest of these were called the Progressive Albums. I only know about the Progressives from one source, George Turner's article in Scott's Monthly cited earlier. Mr. Turner writes: "Returning to 1926, Provisional Albums were started. In the late 1930s the title was changed to Scott's Annual Album and were issued quarterly, later to only three times a year. These were simply temporary space providers for all new issues chronicled in the Scott Monthly Journal each year."
I suspect that Turner's comment about multiple issues in a year applies only to the Progressive Albums. As far as I know the Annual albums were published once a year.
- 1926-193?, Progressive albums
- Loose-leaf pages published first quarterly and then three times a year
- 1936, Annual album 1934-35
- 1937, Annual album 1935-36
- 1938, 1 June, International annual postage stamp album, 1936-1937 ed
- 1939, 14 March, International annual postage stamp album. 1937-1938 ed
- 1940, 14 June, International annual postage stamp album. 1938-1939 ed
- [1941?, Annual album 1939-40?]
- 1937, Annual album 1935-36
- I have never seen a copy of the 1939-40 album or found a reliable citation to it. It is possible that it was prepared but never released.
The dates for the stamps in the annual albums match the corresponding catalog coverage and thus are not complete years. One of Scott's ads mentions the "annual albums which provide spaces for stamps issued between publications of the Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue."
I have previously blogged about the Annual Albums. If you follow this link, definitely check out the comments as these have much additional information.
If you can shed any more light on the Progressive Albums, please let me know. Otherwise, the next time I'm in a philatelic library, I'll try to see what I can find. I will also dig a little deeper in search of the last Annual album.
