Mystic Premium Binder Vs. Scott Binder

What do you consider reasonably well-constructed?

I would consider a reasonably well-constructed album to have a fabric covering of heavy book cloth, such as buckram. The hinge should be a heavy canvas, or similar material.

My experience in repairing books, Bibles, heavy catalogs and the like tells me that the quality of bound materials has taken a sharp nosedive in the last thirty years. I suspect that stamp albums are not an exception to this trend, but I could be wrong.

Personally, my best-organized collections are in old Minkus two-post albums. Some years ago I could buy them quite cheaply at stamp shows. So, I would cut the titles off of the covers and mount my own custom-printed titles in their place. Even though the fabric coverings of these albums is not the best quality, I have only had to repair one or two of them after many years of use.

apastuszak, What size Avery binder is pictured in your photos and approximately how many pages do you have in it?

Those are the Avery 1" binders. Not sure how many pages I have in each binder. I'll need to go upstairs and count one. I'll get back to you.

Can you give me an example of such a binder. Just curious.

I think Bindertek makes an excellent binder. Very well constructed. No vinyl in it at all. And the spine has a pull ring. But their 1" binder doesn't use ball and socket rings. And they don't make a 1½" binder. 2" binders are too thick for me.

I'm curious what you think of their binder.

https://www.bindertek.com/one-touch...der-2-spine/

Some of the most indestructable binders are the Avery Duralast and the Staples Better Binder. The covers are very durable, but they're all also a little on the soft side, and not as rigid as I would like them to be.

The PERFECT binder for me would be the 1" Bindertek binder with ball and socket rings. But, sadly, it does not exist.

Here is a repurposed Minkus binder. It may have been "British Caribbean."

That's a nice looking binder. I'm not a fan of 2 post binders personally.

The Bindertek binders are nice, and they seem to have a wide selection. The Avery is nice too.
I'd agree that if the binder is good quality, with normal use the hinge should hold up. So a metal piano hinge may be overkill. Still, even Bindertek has specialty binders like the "archival" binders which feature metal hinges. And the Scott Specialty has metal hinges. I wouldn't call the lack of a metal hinge a deal-breaker though. Currently, I went with the Mystic Premium Binder, and its quality is much better than their standard. But it looks good (to me) as well.

<soapbox>
I have to mention my frustration with folks who open ringed binders incorrectly and screw them up. Never pull a binder ring open by grabbing the rings, this distorts the ring alignment and causes them to not close/match up properly, which in turn results in pages catching and tearing on the rings.
Instead always use the open 'tabs' on the binder ends to open the rings. (There are really cheap binders which do not have a mechanism to open and close the rings and you are forced to pull on the rings, avoid those altogether!)
</soapbox>

Don

51studebaker:


The Mystic premium binder has no tabs, requiring a ring-pull. This did strike me as odd for a "premium" binder. But then, it's about price point too, I guess. I'll be able to see what happens over time, but the truly better binders' opening mechanisms all seem to have tabs.

My experience has been that the rings tend to get messed up before the hinges do. I bought a Mystic Premium binder my wife got me for Christmas. My cat knocked it off the dining room table and one of the rings got bent. The binder cover and hinge are still in great shape, but I can't bend the ring back so it closes properly. I eventually gave up and just left it on a shelf in my basement. Every once in a while I get inspired to try. But I've never been able to bend a binder ring back into shape once it's bent.

Let's face it, nothing is safe from a cat!

Did you attempt bending the ring back into place using a pair of pliers (or two pairs?) That might work, but there is a risk of marring the ring which could interfere with the pages. Therefore, some emery paper could fix that.

Another thing I do is to tape the pliers' jaws with masking tape to help minimize marring of the work piece.

I did try using needle nose pliers. But I haven't tried using 2 pairs of pliers. Pretty sure I still have the binder. I'll try two pliers and see if that helps.

Each 1" binder has between 140 and 150 pages in it. But I have the binders packed a little loose. I could probably add another 20 pages without issue.

Avery claims that the 1" binder can hold 275 pages. But that probably means 20 lb paper without stamps on them.