Disappointed With Mystic's 2012 Amer Heirloom Supplement

Let me preface my remarks by saying that, for the last three years, I've had a blast with Mystic's American Heirloom album. Most fun I've ever had sitting down. With that said, I'm underwhelmed and truly shocked at this year's supplement for a host of reasons. I plan on writing to them with the hope that they might listen to at least one possible voice of reason before they create next year's supplement. I'd like to hear from those of you who also have the Heirloom album as sort of a reality check on my complaints. Here goes with my rant.
On page 1304, the perforated se-tenant "Santa and Sleigh", Scott 4712-4715, is divided into four very separate display boxes. Since this se-tenant forms one cohesive picture of Santa and his reindeers flying over housetops, why in the world would anyone split this lovely picture up? Note that the imperf variety in the supplement does keep all four stamps together to form the complete picture.

This leads me to what I found to be the worst error. On page IMP3 in the addendum for the imperfs, the Major League All-Stars are displayed in two ways - as a strip of four and as singles. Again the singles each have a distinctly separate display box on the page. If the philatelic standard that most collectors follow in displaying this type of se-tenant is a block of four, why would Mystic choose those two formats? For those collectors that only have singles, a single display box for all four se-tenants would work fine, but unless I create my own page, I will now be forced to stick my block of four in the middle of the page between the four pictures. On page 1298, the perforated MLB All-Stars also appears as a strip vice a block of four. Don't ask me why - just makes no sense.

Although Mystic did keep all the coil versions of this year's Four Flags issue together, they then divided the two booklets Scott 4641-4644 and 4645-4648 up as if they were not se-tenants. To be even more confusing, they chose to then display the #4673-4676 as a se-tenant. It gets even worse unfortunately, when on the final variety of this issue, the ATM booklet #4706-4709, Mystic went back to displaying them as singles. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I fail to see even a spark of consistency in what they've done with the Four Flags.
There are several other problems I see with the supplement, but I'd really like to see what observations others have made with their copies of this supplement. I look forward to hearing from some of you.

This is why I make my own pages using Mystic's blank pages and Heirloom binders for US stamps. This kind of problem can be seen all the way back into the 1990s and led me to creating my own pages.

I do the same for foreign stamps, but use Mystic's Voyager binders so I have instant on-shelf recognition between domestic and foreign.

Donald

I don't collect new issues.. My Mystic albums stop at 1984. Love the albums though.

First of all, I don't have the Mystic supplement you speak of. But here's my take on the subject:

While your comments are most likely justified for the way your collect stamps, Mystic is probably attempting to meet the need of a larger stamp collecting audience in the way they issue their Supplements.

For example, when you take into consideration the novice collector who may only collect only used stamps off of incoming mail, I can see the idea that each of the Santa and Sleigh stamps would have their own individual box. That being said, I think they should have the four stamps together in one block to make up the entire picture, too, for those interested in collecting them as a mint block.

I think you're well justified in your comment about the layout for the MLB Imperfs, but do remember that the USPS (in all of their wisdom?) has recently changed the format of many commemorative stamps so that there are no longer "blocks" of stamps but "strips" of stamps instead. Take, for example, the American Scientists issue of 2011 or the Romare Bearden issue of 2011, no blocks of four different examples exist on those panes, you must acquire them in vertical or horizontal strips only. So it seems as if it is almost an effort to migrate collectors into getting used to collecting stamps in strips rather than blocks. Then, we're also seeing panes of 20 stamps with five different designs, demanding that we purchase them in strips of 5 in order to get a representative example of all of the varieties.

The Four Flags issue is rather complicated to collect and there may be justification for some of the formats used. For example, the booklets of 20, have the four different varieties in block format; however, the booklet of 10 has, of necessity, only two blocks of four and two extra stamps, so perhaps there is reasoning that for those with only single stamps from that booklet, some may choose to display them as singles.

Similar reasoning holds true with the Four Flags ATM Booklet of 18. As the format is 3 stamps wide by 3 stamps deep on the top of the ATM booklet, and then a selvage with the plate number, and another 3 stamps wide by 3 stamps deep on the bottom of the ATM booklet, there are really only two (2) full blocks of four available in that format. Further, if you chose to collect the centermost stamps, there are two with full die cuts on all four sides (the only stamps of that series perforated as such) which may prompt some to choose to collect these varieties separately.

And I'm not even addressing the recent news item suggesting that the USPS has reprinted these Four Flags booklet panes so that there are now at least two different plate numbers and minor printing differences between the initial printing and later reprint, but that will probably be taken up in later supplements!

wt1, it appears from your second paragraph that you agree with me concerning se-tenant stamps that compose one complete picture. Creating one complete display box would satisfy the needs of any collector - either the one who only collects stamps from incoming mail or the more serious mint collector who desires intact se-tenant blocks. The method Mystic chose only satisfies the one collector and not the other.
I also understand that several recent issues don't lend themselves to a block of four format (Bonsai issue, the aloha shirt panes, 20th Century Poets, Film Directors, Innovative Choreographers, and the Pixar issue for example. However, when a block of four format is logical, why present the collector with a display box for a strip of the stamps rather than a block? Mystic, in fact, is making the purchase of mint se=tenant stamps a guessing game. I usually purchase my stamps soon after their release. In January, I purchased a block of four of the Working Dog series because that seemed consistent with the way most people collect se-tenants including myself. A year later, long after my post office no longer has any of the series, I get the Mystic supplement and #4604-4607 are displayed as a strip. Why? What could possibly be the logic here? It most certainly wasn't for lack of room on the page, and of course, this issue forms a beautiful block of four. My choices now are less than attractive - create a new page on my own, stick the block of four across the strip box, or, hazard the thought, split the se-tenant in half to fit the strip display. This is exactly the same with both of the MLB All-Stars. Why, when there are four complete blocks of four to each twenty pane sheet leaving a single four-stamp strip, did Mystic only create display boxes for a strip and four singles? In having no consistent method, as in these cases, Mystic is creating unnecessary confusion for collectors using this album.

I'm only hazarding guesses as to why Mystic does what they do. Maybe Mystic should consider doing what White Ace did (or still does?) and release an advance notice of the formats they intend to use on their pages as soon as they are known, which would help collectors know the formats they should collect while the stamps are still available (if not from the post office, then at least from SFS).

I do agree with you that there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the Mystic pages. Maybe if enough comments/complaints were received by Mystic they would do something about it. Fortunately, it's not too difficult to make your own pages should something be out of the order you'd prefer to collect, but even if you want to, admittedly you shouldn't have to do it when you're paying out good money for Mystic Supplements that should be in a consistent order.

I guess we all need to consider that 21st century modern stamp issues of the United States are always going to be a collecting challenge, which is good reason why many have noted that they stopped doing it.

Mystic has always tried to go with strips, rather than blocks of 4. The reason why they do this, is because that's the way Mystic sells those stamps. If you look on their web site and look up these stamps, they sell them either as singles or as strips most of the time.

The entire album and supplements are completely geared towards what is in Mystic's inventory.

I never connected that reasoning before, but now that I think about it, you're probably right.

Seeing that Mystic sells most common modern issues at inflated prices, maybe this is just a marketing gimmick. In other words, a clever way for encouraging some collectors to order stamps from Mystic solely to get them in the format the album pages call for so they can fill in all of the "blanks" in their album, even if they should have the stamps in other formats.

I have a growing glassine with stamps marked "wrong orientation for album" Most of those came direct from USPS year sets.

I got my supplement for 2012 Friday and Saturday went and bought the 2012 album because it comes with mounts. BTW, when did they start coming with clear mounts? I was expecting black so I didn't even use them.

For this year I have the MLB and Film Directors blocks that I can't mount

The USPS year sets that I got back in the 90s, a lot of times had the setenant in the wrong order, but they were almost always in blocks of 4. And blocks of 4 is how most modern stamp albums expect you to mount the stamps, except for Mystic. I wonder if carving up sheets into strips instead of blocks gets you more connected setenants per sheet.

apastuszek, I was thinking that too. As I'm sure you'll recall, the imperf MLB All-Stars panes were four stamps to a row and five stamps to each column. So one could just carve out five se-tenant strips from each pane. Of course, one could also create four blocks of four with one strip left over. Mystic, as someone suggested, may be taking the easiest cutting route (strips), and then matching their album displays with their inventory of strips. This still seems contrary to how most collectors collect (blocks of four) and may turn off some of their customers like me. Next year I may just opt to purchase the blank pages and create my own displays. I don't think Mystic will go out of business, if they don't get my $8 every January.