This Mystic Heirloom Album Starting To Bug Me...

I'm going through the 2000s now, and a heck of a lot of pages have self-adhesive positional se-tenants mounted individually, and other se-tenants as strips of 4 instead of blocks of 4. Now if they were consistent, I could understand they made the decision that self adhesive stamps are never se-tenants, but it seems some se-tenants are attached and some are mounted individually. I just went through Volume III and can't figure out their logic.

Modifying pages for this album is becoming far more work than I initially thought it would be.

In the 2011 supplement I had to modify HALF the pages to get them to lay out the way I want them.

I'm thinking I may cut off the Heirloom after 1999 and use Steiner pages from 2000 up. I could easily make facing page descriptions so I get the same information that Mystic provides. The Steiner pages are at least closer to how I want to lay out the stamps.

The Heirloom album is still an outstanding value for the money. And if you're willing to lay pages out the way they have them, you'll enjoy the album a great deal. But, if you're a picky SOB like I am, you might get a little annoyed with the later years.

I understand your frustration. I haven't yet mounted the modern stuff in the Mystic album I have, but the layout is very much arbitrary on the part of Mystic to say the least. I don't think many of the modern album makers really have a well thought out plan as to how to layout stamps on an album page, partially due to the significant number of varieties that come out with each new issue and there is apparently no consistency between them. (Eventually, we'll need 3 volumes just for just the post-2000 material if this keeps up!)

Have we yet figured out how we are to collect (or mount) the five 2012 Bonsai stamps? Or the beginning and ending varieties of the Spectrum Eagles or Weathervanes?

I have decided long ago to collect US stamps the way that pleases ME, regardless of how the album maker or the Scott catalog may decide to list them. As long as I'm happy with the material in my collection, I have no one else to answer to.

The bottom line is that you really can't beat the Mystic album for price/value, but I think I'll use it merely as a guide and not as an absolute final decision of how I choose to mount my stamp collection.

I completely agree. Changing the layout of the album would be a piece of cake, if there weren't descriptions on the back of each page.

The descriptions, however, are the reason I bought the album in the first place. I think it adds a lot to the value of the album to read about the people, places and things on the stamps.

I don't know how Mystic managed to create an album with descriptions, pictures AND Scott numbers at a price point cheaper than albums that only have boxes and pictures.

So, I flipped through Volumes II and III and I have found I will need to modify the following pages in order to keep se-tenants connected or convert strip of 4 se-tenants to block of 4 se-tenants:

Volume II:

519, 557, 607, 609, 623, 631, 637, 655, 683, 699, 739, 741, 771, 779, 792, 839, 841, 851, 865, 872, 878, 880, 886

Volume III (through 2010):

897, 923, 929, 949, 954, 958, 976, 984, 986, 988, 990, 1028, 1032, 1048, 1060, 1070, 1076, 1080, 1082, 1086, 1090, 1092, 1104, 1106, 1108, 1110, 1126, 130, 1134, 1136, 1148, 1160, 1168, 1170, 1192, 1200, 1202, 1226, 1228, 1234, 1244

That's a lot of work!

I think switching to the Steiner after 2000 is a good idea.

Although I do not collect modern, the Steiner for the classic era is layed out in a highly aesthetically pleasing way. Now no album is perfect - including Steiner. But when you put in the denominator how inexpensive it can be for the Steiner pages, well it is hard to beat.

My two Kreuzers.
( I've been putting in the early Germany recently)

Yeah, I think the Volume II pages are do-able over time. The Volume III seems like way too much work.