Mystic Page Modifications

There were 3 stages to my stamp collecting:

1. When I was a small child. I collected used stamps as a teenager and just used hinges
2. In my 20s. I moved in with my wife and rediscovered the hobby. I had a tad more disposable income since I didn't have my kids yet. I bought a White Ace album and a bunch of black mounts, because all the stamp stores near me only sold black mounts.
3. When my kids got older. I already had a pile of black mounts from the 90s, so I wasn't going to waste my investment and I just stuck to black.

To elaborate on #3.

In the beginning of 2001 my older son was born. I was a first time parent and was, to put it mildly, overwhelmed. I put the stamp stuff away on a shelf in my basement, and after a few years, I just forgot about it. When my other son was born in 2003, the stamp collection went even farther back in my mind.

Fast forward to 2009. My 2 kids were in cub scouts. I volunteered to be a Cub Scout leader for my younger son. Well, one of the Cub Scout rank requirements was for the kids to show something they collected. My wife suggested that I bring in my stamp collection. That afternoon I came down with something, and my wife ended up going to the meeting in my stead with my stamp collection in hand. She came home and said the kids had a great time. At that point, I pulled out the White Ace albums and began to flip through them. And I just stared at the collection and said to myself "I really miss stamp collecting."

Well, at this point it was 2009, and I hadn't bought a stamp album supplement since 1999. To buy all the White Ace supplements I needed for commemoratives, definitives, and booklet stamps would have cost me a FORTUNE. So, I decided it might be cheaper to just buy a whole album.

My first serious album was the Scott Minuteman and I was contemplating returning to that. But then discovered the Mystic Heirloom album. It was insanely cheap, compared to other albums. So, I ordered it.

Then I quickly discovered that Mystic had se-tenants set up in a way to maximize the number of se-tenants they can get per sheet. And some sheets, if you could only get one or two sets of se-tenants out of a sheet, would mount the stamps individually. The Heirloom was designed to match how Mystic was selling stamps.

Thus began my journey to "fix" the Mystic Heirloom stamp album and maker it more like an album a MNH collector would want to use.

You are right. I meant to say the descriptions are inside the stamp but visible after the stamp is mounted.

Andy: Have you ever tried to print your pages on the heavier stock that Mystic uses for its hingeless albums? Does Mystic even sell these pages as blanks? With respect to mounts, I have been considering either Scott or Showgard clear mounts, both of which appear to be split back. Do you have a preference?

I recently read through this thread for the first time and would like to give my solution. First, though, a little background information. I returned to stamp collecting about a year ago after a long absence. For the first 8 months or so, I concentrated on the foreign areas that I'm interested in. A few months back, I pulled out my old Harris Liberty album, which hadn't been touched for over 35 years, and looked through it. I had an average collection for a teen with most examples being used or with slight faults and the unused stamps being hinged.

I decided to revive my US collection and, rather than build on the collection I already had and have to eventually replace all the stamps, decided to completely start over collecting only mint stamps except for the older issues that would be too expensive. Because I hate cutting mounts and this was to be a mostly mint collection, I ordered the first three volumes of Mystic's American Heirloom hingeless album which go up to 1984, where I decided to stop my collection. I later ordered volume 4 which goes from 1985-94. I have since decided that I'm going to stick with my original cut-off date of 1984 and sold volume 4.

I really like the Mystic albums, especially for the price. Similar albums with slip cases, as mine have, sell for much, much more. My main complaint with the Mystic albums, and it primarily applies only to volume 3 1966-84, is with the handling of the se-tenants. Rather than go through the trouble of trying to design and print pages to house these issues together, I simply bought two sets of each se-tenant issue. All are modern issues and can usually be found for face value or less. One set is mounted in the Heirloom album and the other is kept se-tenant in an album of Vario pages where I keep the post-1984 issues that interested me enough to get, my postal cards, and postal history. I also keep the 1970 Christmas precancels (Scott #s 1414a-1418a), for which there are no album spaces, in there. This might not be the perfect solution, but it works for me.

I am printing my hacked pages on Southworth 100% Cotton Ivory 32 lb. Resume Paper. I used to buy the Mystic blank pages and print directly on them, bu this paper is a bit thicker.

As for mounts... Personally, I like Scott mounts better. I have a bunch of old Showgard mounts go "wavy" on me. And I like the Scott all plastic cases that snap open and close better than the Showgard cases.

The Page 651-657 Hack is now available.

I bought the Wildflowers sheet and did not want to break it up. So, I scanned it in, and made a page showing the scanned color image, and added a PDF form box to let you type in where you are storing the sheet. The back is a copy of Page 658, so you can just remove page 651-658 from your album and drop this in.

Picture:



Link to my blog with downloads:

https://stamphacks.com/wp/?p=1460

Introducing the Mystic Heirloom 2019 Supplement Retrofit kit.

I ordered the 2019 Mystic Heirloom Supplement and saw that I only needed to hack 4 pages, and of those 4, two were really optional. So, I had some fun the last few days. Here's what we have:

1. Page 1544 – Cactus Flowers. I modified the page to allow you to mount the whole booklet.
2. Page 1548 – Corals. Both corals are now horizontal strips
3. Page 1562 – Military Working Dogs. The dogs stay connected
4. Page 1568 – Spooky Silhouettes. The stamps are a block of 4 now instead of a strip.

Here are some screenshots of the pages:









All files available on my blog:

https://stamphacks.com/wp/?p=1467

And another one. The 2018 Supplement Retrofit kit.

Hacking the Mystic Heirloom 2018 supplement, only required I change 2 pages:

Page 512 – Frozen Treats. Made sure all the stamps stayed connected.
Page 1530 – Hot Wheels. It was easiest to just moung the whole sheet, rather than try to break it up.

Here are some pictures of what I did:




Downloads on my blog:

https://stamphacks.com/wp/?p=1473

I am new to this forum so forgive me if I don't know the history of "hacking" Mystic pages to modify some of them. I have read through this 8 year old thread and am just wondering if Mystic Stamp Company knows about this and is ok with this practice of "hacking" some of their proprietary pages and making them available for free. I guess it must be ok if this has been done since 2012 but the word "hack" gives me pause.

I have never asked Mystic for permission. I don't know if they are even aware of this. But I'm not making money of these pages, and they're useless to anyone that doesn't have a Mystic Heirloom stamp album. I don't plan to ask for permission from Mystic. If they want them taken down, then they need to discover them and tell me.

I would think that my pages add value to Mystic and don't take it away.

As for the word "hack..." Hacking simply means modification.