US collecting book with pictures?

Can one buy an up to date US stamp collecting book that has pictures to use to match the stamps too? If so, can you recommend a good one to purchase and possible where?

After a trip to the Smithsonian postal museum last week my interest in stamps was renewed and I dug out my 40 year old stamp collection.

As a young boy I put them in a book that had pictures of the stamps to match and applied with glued hinges. I would like to transfer to a modern book and start collecting again.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

There are many good US albums, but prices can be high.

One very good, long time dealer is Subway Stamp Shop.
(I do not work for them)

They list 21 US Albums on their web site (at 20% off retail).

Prices range from $54 to several hundred $.

Scott Specialized is the best when it comes to detailed information about
U.S. stamps, and the explanation of minute differences between similar-appearing stamps is absolutely essential to determining whether you have something common or something very rare and valuable. As was pointed out, the "drawback" for some is that the pictures are not in color.

The USPS book has color pictures and is smaller, thus easier to carry with you if you are going to stamp shows. However, it should be noted that color pictures are only an approximation, and many similar appearing stamps have small differences in shades which the USPS catalog cannot adequately depict.
In fact, it sometimes requires the purchase of special color strips---which can be rather expensive---to have a way to determine the differences.

Both are good reference works. But if I had to choose, I'd go with Scott's
Specialized because it contains more complete information.

And I'd also recommend subscribing to Linn's or a similar publication to keep up with information on new issues and discoveries.

The album issue is another one altogether. Unless you create your own, you will always wind up having to compromise to some degree, since I don't know of any that are made that will accommodate everything a collector may want.
You may want to purchase a fairly all-purpose album (like the Liberty album), then set up a stockbook or two for the material that won't fit in it.

thanks for that.....i tried to check out sites with Scotts....lots of choices.....very confusing for me....not sure what to buy for Scott albums.

Have you heard of or seen the Mystic US catalog? that seems to be close to what Im looking for. http://www.mysticstamp.com/spOfferDetail.asp?soID=42 what are your thoughts on that one?

I'll have to admit that I'm a bit confused about what you are looking for.
You seem to be confusing albums with catalogues; the former are for displaying stamps, the latter for identifying and evaluating them.

I would suggest that you continue for a while, perhaps quite a while, without an album. If I were you, I would remove the stamps from your old album and then, using a recent Scott U.S. Specialized Catalogue, start identifying and organizing them in a stockbook with clear mylar strips.
You'll learn a lot about what you have, and about what you are interested in. You could even start accumulating more.

Eventually, you could consider what kind of album you want. You might want to consider making your own albums, which is the only way to go in my opinion. A good proprietary album can teach you a lot about stamps, but eventually you're going to find a "duplicate" with a beautiful cancel, or an interesting cover, or a pair of stamps or a strip or a block that you want to keep, and proprietary albums just don't cater to those kinds of items, especially if you want to do any sort of write-up about them.