Album Review: United States Albums

hmm - hadn't thought about book ends. Three or four per shelf would definitley help. That would be an easier sell to my wife than buying more binders!

Yeah, but binder are way cooler than book ends! You should order one bindertek binder just to check it out.

Or read my review:

https://goscf.com/t/17401

These binders are really stiff.

I see no one has tackled the Davo Review yet so here goes.

I keep my cream of the crop in a set of Davo Hingless albums and have been very happy with them. The Slipcases are very sturdy and the binders are also. The coverings are thick and made to last.



The stock sheet are a very heavy weight cardstock and will hold up for years to come.One issue I did notice is the pages do not lie flat on the opposite side.



The sheets use the Scott numbering order but may skip on some of the minor variations. Also, from the Washington/Franklin series they do not have coil issues listed. But they do have blank sheets that match with a border. Then I use clear mounts to make my sets that I need.



I have had no loose mounts yet and there are not rings but solid posts that hold the pages.

I purchased these about half of retail through a auction and have been very happy with them. I did want at the time a set of Scott Platinum's but these were the closets hingless of comparable quality at the time.

Hope this helps give a idea of the Davo albums.

Beautiful albums and stamps, Mac.

I've been thinking about buying the 1st Davo hingeless for US since it covers 1847-1940, all the classics in a great presentation album.
After seeing the Trans-Mississippi and Pan Am sets from your album I may be sold. Knowing you can add blank pages to include some varieties is also a helpful.
The entire thread has been full of great info, bravo for putting it together.

Bill

The Davo is indeed a very nice album.

I have never understood why albums as expensive as the Scott and Davo fail to include stamp descriptions, while lower end albums like the Minuteman, Mystic Heirloom, and Harris have descriptions.

I always wanted a album with the combination of either White Ace or Harris with descriptions for each stamp (Always liked the little notes of information). Also, I always like the heavy card stock of White Ace pages. It would include a lay flat design like Scotts Platinum with the numbering system printed on each square.

As a newbie to this forum I found these reviews extremely helpful. I have ordered the Heirloom set based upon the comments here. I am thinking I will use that for the used and save up for something nicer for the MNH. Thanks for the write ups.

Thank you for the comments and welcome to SCF tbirdfour!

Brian

I loved the White Ace album when I used it. But it is insanely expensive. For what you pay, you would think they could at least license Scott numbers and add them to the pages.

I know the Scott National is expensive, but their supplements are $15 for 2011.

White Ace has:

2011 Commemorative Singles Supplement - $29.95
Regular Issue Singles Complete supplement pages for 2011 - $6.20
Booklet Panes supplement pages for 2011 - $6.20

And the Air Mail supplement is not out yet. So for 2011, you're looking at $42.35 and you don't even have spaces for the air mail stamps yet. Great albums, but very pricey.

I actually contacted Amos and noticed on their website that a lot of their pages are available as print on demand (which makes a lot of sense). So, since descriptions in albums are important to me, I sent them an email asking if they would offer an option as print on demand to get Minuteman pages printed on Scott National paper. I told them I would happily order a complete Minuteman album if it was on better paper. I got an email back from someone that they would forward my email on to upper management. I never heard anything after that.

I have experience with the Scott Minuteman, Scott National and Harris Liberty.

I bought the Minuteman for myself when I was first getting back to collecting a year ago. I went to a local dealer (in Northern VA) and he showed me the 3 ring binders and lamented the poor quality of Scott products these days. The binders were torn and damaged during shipping. They looked like cheap 3 ring binders to me. I would much rather have a two-post binder that doesn't open flat than a 3 ring binder (I've never had a 3 ring binder that didn't have the rings get screwed up).

However, he had punched the pages for the old two-post format and had a couple old two-post binders. I purchased the re-punched Volume 1 pages through 1990 and the old binders and they are okay. The cost was about $100. Drawbacks: the paper is much thinner than Scott National and the printing is poor quality - seems faded in places. So, if you can get the old binder and pages punched for them, the Minuteman is an inexpensive alternative.

The Harris Liberty I bought for my son, again through 1990 (we don't care to collect self-adhesive stamps). The paper is about the quality of the Minuteman, the printing is much better quality and the album is two-post and decent quality. The only problem with the Harris, and has always been a problem, is the edges of the pages just don't line up and over time they get worn. (I'll post an image later). This cost us about $100.

So, out of the box, the Harris Liberty seems a better deal to me. As for coverage of the various stamp issues, I'll have to check and re-post.

I later decided that the Minuteman wasn't good enough and had happened to acquire some old (large) Scott National binders through auctions. The binders were basically free as I was bidding on the stamps. I then purchased Volume 1-3 pages for about $150 and two used slipcases from a local dealer for about $35. The 3 volumes with BOB from Vol 1 fit in two binders. So total cost was about $200 and I have much better coverage including BOB (revenues, official, envelopes etc.). The binders are a little worn, but pages are new. I also have a decent additional set of Vol 1 pages from one of the auctions.

Thanks for all of this great information. I'm just getting back in to collecting after an 18 year hiatus. I dug out my old (1994ish) Minuteman album and was looking to replace it with a hinge-less album. Think I'll go with the Mystic Heirloom. Once again, thanks.

For anyone looking the Mystic Heirloom album, you should read these two other threads I started:

https://goscf.com/t/22943&SearchTer...tic,Heirloom

https://goscf.com/t/23605&SearchTer...tic,Heirloom

Just read your two other threads as you recommended. I'm only collecting the classic U.S. issues so shouldn't need to worry about adding supplements. Good info.

We often see old albums turn up in our club auctions. It's interesting how well many of these have survived decades of use.