Album Review: United States Albums

Great discussions and insights on albums here. Thank you. Can you please give your verdict on which album to choose between Davo hingeless album versus Mystic heirloom hingeless album? I'm about to buy one of these soon. I know price gap is large between two choices, but then should I go for Davo if meets all requirements. I don't care about spaces for small variations. Any help is appreciated as I am new here.

Andy ...

I studied your two threads carefully because I'm not fully committed yet to print your own & mount vs the Mystic Hingeless. My fear is my OCD nature will make me want to redesign pages and on a Hingeless album that is problematic. In your threads you mention using Steiner pages after 2000. I presume, from other posts, you did not go that route. Have you been able to produce Steiner page facsimiles in the event you want to redesign one of his pages?

Finally, how are the Scribus scripts coming? I have not installed yet but it's only a matter of time.

... Cal

I haven't mounted anything from 2000 on recently. I bought Minuteman supplements 2000-2006 off of various eBay sellers for about $5.00 each, but the Minuteman paper is incredibly THIN. It's thinner than the Heirloom paper. Though the pages are laid out exactly the way I want them to be laid out (all se-tenants connected, blocks of 4 instead of strips), the paper is just too thin for me.

Steiner pages lack descriptions. My initial plan was to print descriptions on the back of the pages, the way that Mystic does it, and I might still do that. My initial idea was to just make the 21 Century myself. I'm still trying to figure out whether I will have time to do that. My kids are back in school and cub scouts is starting back up again. My time is, once again, not becoming my own.

The Scribus scripts are coming along. I have a few other quickies I wrote to do various small tasks. I just need to find the time to clean them up and post them online somewhere.

DON"T GO with a TWO RING BINDER or you will regret it!

I HATE 2 post binders. Pages won't stay flat. Makes mounting and viewing stamps on any pages othe than anything at the center a nightmare.

My wife and I purchased the Minuteman binders a couple of years ago because:

• we like some description with the stamps
• we wanted Scott #s (we had several second hand Albums from yard sales and in each case someone had handwritten the Scott numbers in each
• we had some White Ace pages from the same place and felt they wer nice but overstyled
• the Minuteman doesn't list every dadgum variation known and since I never plan on purchasing a 85A Franklin Z Grill, I would rather not have my stamp album remind me I am not Warren Buffet
• the cost wasn't too bad -- at some online special

We like the album a lot, HOWEVER, as many have mentioned, the paper was, um, paper THIN and we didn't see like the idea of asking it to hold mounts for decades and not start tearing at the rings. And it looked like a heckuva a lot of hole reinforcements to apply. We were disappointed enought in paper thickness that we held off on starting on the albums thinking maybe they would be an ebay sale item and make another choice.

A few days later, though, quite by accident we found a stack of super heavy Wausau parchment style paper in the clearance stack at Office Depot for next to nothing. So we bought this and photocopied everything up through 1994 onto this (haven't gotten to the later years). The thick stock takes up a lot of room, so we bought a couple of extra binders. This was certainly all a hassle, and I can't heartily recommend the Minuteman album because of the paper thickess. but the result for us is VERY nice.

Amos does a lot print on demand stuff for their supplements, so I asked them if they could do Scott Minuteman pages on Scott National paper and was told no. It was worth a try.

Whoa! These pictures match exactly my first album. I remember the 2 posts. In 1985 or so I was allowed to take a larger 3 ring binder from work large enough to contain all the pages to their size. (They said it would cost them more to sell it than to just let me have it).

I punched 3 holes for every page for this single 4" binder. A real blast from the past to see the cover on that minuteman. Maybe it was dug it out of my trash can?? No, they probably made more than one.

I am thinking of dividing it up into sections and other binders now. I learned that the more stamps you put in it the thicker the sucker gets!

The only Boy Scout merit badge I ever got was for stamp collecting. It is in a plastic catch on the spline of the 4". Which new binder will get it? Problems, problems...


-IBFS

The "Black Sheep".

Named "Black Sheep" because my one of a kind album really doesn't belong in this thread of marketable album reviews. Probably almost all of you have your stamps in store bought albums. But I hope it is of interest anyway. As stated in the previous post, my first album was a Scott Minuteman.

My album itself, is generic, unimpressive, improvised, but effective.

The Binder was built like a tank. No wear in almost 3 decades. Any flaws were probably in it when I got it. My father was an Art Director with clout. He took this front page to work and had a calligrapher put my name on it. He brought it home as a surprise. A cherished gift to this day.





The worst thing is the paper thin sheets of the Minuteman album. The rings will tear the page holes open. You can see the original holes of the 2 post Minuteman, which also had the same issue. Gummed reinforcements are a necessary tool to me just like stamp tongs. Even reinforced holes eventually have to be reinforced again. Then I put the reinforcements on both sides of the sheet.



If the album is not closed with the pages held up, the holes in the back suffer worst.



I like the informative descriptions. But it was a starter album. I wish I had separate spaces for stamps like this, stamps with different types, and so on.



But I have several blank pages with the border where I can make copies of them into my own pages, for whatever purpose.



To me, it is the stamps that must look good. The album is…whatever works.





Truly a "poor man's" album. I give the binder an "A-" and the pages a "C+". Hope you enjoyed, and forgave, the diversity.


-IBFS

Hi,
I confess I have not read all the posts, but I would like to post my comments anyway...........

I got back into US collecting (unused/mint) last year and did a lot of studying beforehand. The Scott Nationals were recommended by folks who seemed to know what they were talking about. The question that remained was using mounts or going hingeless. I ended up with two Scotts binders/sleaves to hold the first three parts (1840-1993). I then used Scott black mounts exclusively.

The reason I didn't go hingeless was the initial cost. However, the cost of the mounts has closed the gap for sure. If I had to do it all over again, I would still go the way I did - as I am very pleased with the results.

IBFS, nice display and nice stamps!




Excellent point!

The only thing stopping me from going with the Scott National is the lack of descriptions. I've never understood why the cheaper Minuteman has description, but the more expensive National does not.

I've always thought that it might be because the Scott Minuteman is (was) considered a starter album marketed to collectors who were just getting started. The descriptions are probably there with the intention of increasing the new collector's interest in collecting, so they would more likely continue with the hobby. It worked on me, in a sense.

I've thought possibly that Scott feels that they don't have to "hold the hands" of us more mature and serious collectors.


-IBFS

One thought... It is sometimes an agonizing decision on whether to go mint or used when buying a stamp. But if I spend, say, $25.00 for a used stamp now instead of $125.00 for mint, and then replace it 10 years later with a $200.00 mint stamp, I have spent $225.00 on that stamp rather than $125.00.

Sorry to derail the topic. Back to it now. Hup...Hup...


-IBFS

Hi again,
May I add..... Assuming one is serious about the hobby - that is to say it is not a passing fancy but likely a very long term interest - it would make sense to get the best album(s) one can afford. Moving stamps from album to album gets old after the first 1000 stamps or so.

For what its worth............