Most collectors put their stamps in stamp albums, and preprinted albums have existed since the very earliest days of our hobby. Scott began producing stamp albums in the United States in the 1860s, copying the first stamp album producers in Europe. The most unusual thing about stamp album producers is how concentrated the business is in just a few hands and how little the stamp album manufacturers have changed over the years.The album business today is controlled by a half a dozen companies that make albums for countries beyond their specialty market and for sale to countries worldwide. These companies are Scott, Davo, Lindner, Yvert, Lighthouse, Schaubek, and Safe. Each makes a full service line of general worldwide albums and a specialty series that includes albums for at least all the major countries of the world. All of these companies have been producing albums at least since WWII, and they are the survivors of a larger album publishing fraternity. In the United States, Scott is the only major stamp album producer still publishing. For many years, Scott had competition from Minkus Publishing in the album and catalog category. Minkus published a serviceable album, less expensive and less well produced than Scott, but definitely a reasonable choice in the album firmament. Minkus albums were sold at the Minkus retail outlets at Gimbles, and when Minkus began to close these stores, their publishing arm was never able to crack the Scott hold on the mainstream philatelic market.
There has been no new major album publisher set up anywhere in the world in the last fifty years. This is because the market for stamp albums is very small, and so few new competitors are attracted to the album publishing business. Scott sells a few hundred albums a year for many in its specialty series. Indeed, if the investment in album production had not already been made (the illustration cuts and layouts), it is doubtful whether most worldwide albums for non-major countries would even be produced today at all. Modern printing set up is much less costly than it used to be, but even with this technology advantage, the stamp album market has not produced competitors to the big traditional album producers.
Like automobiles, each of the seven major stamp albums are pitched towards a market and have a price-point. Scott and Davo are good quality mid-market albums, sort of where Buick tries to position itself. Safe tries to position itself a bit differently having a high cost binder but saving money by using a hingeless page design that allows them to use the same hingeless page holders again and again (I don’t really like this way of making an album, but it has its fans). Lighthouse is the Cadillac of albums in design and production. But since a nice collection is enhanced in the nicest albums, collectors receive a higher selling price when selling stamps in Lighthouse hingeless specialty albums and so can enjoy collecting in these albums without any net cost to themselves.