I never met an album I liked.

     Stamp albums are a necessary evil of stamp collecting. In the year 2000 it was estimated that you would need 120 volumes of the size of the old Minkus worldwide albums, which if your not familiar with those they are about the same size as a Harris Citation, or a Scott's Vol. 1, worldwide 1840 - 1940, to have a space for every stamp that was ever issued. I don't know if that would include varieties, but I'm sure not any spaces for shades.    Of course it would be insane to attempt a collection of that scope, not that some won't try.

     Preprinted albums are a big help to the beginning collector as they provide an instant means of organizing a stamp collection. I think albums are moving away from the old large proprietary albums that require special paper for supplements or blank pages, and moving more towards 8 1/2 x 11 inch pages which are readily available. A free US album is now available on the internet, and since I can't hyperlink here you will have to do a search for philosateleia, and you can download it and print it out. stampalbums.com is another with free blank pages that I use, and he has free US pages covering 2001 - 2005. He also has the entire world available for only $20 per year, which I think is a tremendous value.  

     I like to use cardstock for my album pages, a bit more expensive than regular paper, but much more substantial.

    So quit blowing your money on preprinted albums, and costly supplements. Move on into the 21st century, and spend the money you save on good stamps for your collection. After all the stamps are the real stars of a stamp collection, not the albums!