A collector called me and asked if I carried album supplements. I do not. He explained that he was collecting through the 1980s, stopped for many years, and now he was taking up stamp collecting again. He was seeking album supplements for the last 35 years to bring his album up to date. This collector is better off buying a new album. Supplements just aren’t available for many of those years.

Dealers who sell album supplements will stock older supplements back five years and maybe ten years at the most. There is almost zero demand for supplements older than that. Yes, you find an occasional collector like this gentleman that needs older supplements. But for the handful of collectors like this and the high cost of stocking those older supplements, it isn’t worth the cost keeping them. After five or ten years, any leftover supplements go into the paper recycle bin.

If you’re in a similar situation where you’re looking for any supplements more than five or ten years back, I think you have two options.

First, you can usually find blank album pages to fit your album. Buy blank pages and mount your stamps. This may be the cheapest option.

Your second option is to buy a new album and start over. Many album supplements cost $5 to $10 or more per year. If you need more than five or ten years of supplements, you’re going to have the cost of a brand new album (or more) in buying the supplements. Bite the bullet. Buy a new album and transfer the stamps from your old album to the new album.

Now you understand why older supplements aren’t available. And you have some options on how to proceed with your collection. I hope this helps.