Minkus Country Albums

Found pages for a Minkus country album on Amos Advantage for a song. Anyone familiar with these? Like- are they printed on one side or two? What weight are they? Are they acid free or "archival safe"? Almost too good a deal to pass up, but would like some insight from somebody who may have some first-hand experience with them before I spend the $$.

The Minkus Albums I have are one sided. They are a decent weight, but I do not know exactly. Sorry, I cannot answer all you questions. Maybe someone else can.

Good luck

Thanks for the info. Wondering if you might be able to respond to a couple other questions. Do you know if they're about the same size as the Scott Specialty pages? I'm thinking of three hole punching them so that I don't have to use a two-post binder with them. And, somewhere I read that they're keyed to the Minkus catalog numbering system, have you had any issues with that?

My experience is that they are pretty light-weight paper and they have Minkus catalog numbers, which no one used anymore.

Not a fan but I do still have my old All American for sentimental reasons. Even the dust cover looks fairly new.

Jack Kelley

It is interesting that perhaps the largest worldwide collection ever formed (1840-2010, 99.9% complete) was housed in 200 Minkus albums.

Minkus Country albums put the regular, semi-postal, air post, postage due etc all on the same page it the stamps were issued around the same time, rather than Scott's approach of putting all of these categories besides regular into the "back of the book".

Actually, the Minkus approach is the same as how European catalogues (Minkus etc) are constructed, and one can argue, it is actually more common/mainstream throughout the world rather than the U/S/(Scott's) approach.

And it makes sense: All similar date/era stamp issues, regardless of category, are presented together.

Although there was an initial adjustment, as I was raised on the "regular"/"BOB" Scott separation, I now like it.

I have a half dozen Minkus country albums and I like them. Yes, the spaces are arranged by Minkus numbers (dead as a door nail) but really not a problem figuring out the current Scott number.

Scott specialty pages are about a 1/4" taller and about a 1/2" wider than Minkus country pages. The framed area for stamps is about a 1/2" taller and 1/4" wider for the Minkus pages.

Minkus pages are perfectly good pages, but they are somewhat thinner than Scott pages, as Chris 2015 says.

As JkBlue notes, the Minkus arrangement of stamps is by year rather than by type of stamp. AirMails, Semi-Postals, etc. are not kept on separate pages in separate sections as they are with Scott catalogues and albums. This makes a great deal better sense to me. In fact, I reorganize my Scott album pages so they're as close to chronological as I can get them. It's easy to find the blank space you're looking for if you know the year of the stamp.

Minkus pages are a little smaller than Scott pages. Hy-brasil gives the exact dimensions above. It's particularly noticeable in page width. A Scott page is wider which I find much more appealing. The difference in page height is fairly inconsequential, and you'll hardly notice it.

Minkus albums aren't updated regularly, and some never seem to be updated at all. So, there are no regular supplements for a lot of Minkus Specialty (country) albums. If you buy Minkus country pages which end, say, in 1985, unless you want to add blank pages, that might be the last year in your collection forever. This makes me very reluctant to use Minkus pages.

Plus there's a binder issue with Minkus -- Amos/Scott sells only two binders for Minkus pages now. One is the Minkus 3-ring binder which is a standard 3-ring binder. You don't need to use theirs as any normal binder will work just fine for Minkus albums with pages designed for this binder (about 8.5 x 11"). The other Minkus binder available is for Minkus two-post pages. Unfortunately, it's an enormous square two-post binder, unattractive and awkward to use. Minkus albums once came in very nice smaller binders, often with rounded spines. This made them easy to handle. No more. This large binder is the only two-post binder sold for Minkus pages, and it's awkward to handle and not very attractive, more like a storage binder for old invoices than a stamp album binder (in my opinion!). So, mixed feelings.

If you try finding an alternative binder to fit Minkus two post pages, good luck. One alternative is to three-hole punch your two-post Minkus pages and put them in a larger 3-ring binder. Or if you want to get really fancy, locate a 22-hole punch and mount them in a European 22-ring binder. They'll look right at home and be easier to use that way.

Note that the smaller Minkus 2-post binder is still available at NOLA Stamps:

This 2.5" 2-post maroon binder will house Minkus 2-post country and worldwide album pages and holds approximately 250 album pages. The dimensions of the binder measure 11 5/8" x 11 1/4" x 3 33/16".A matching slipcase also is available.

Thanks for all the input on this question, It's certainly helpful to me as I try to find an answer to my "one album to hold them all" conundrum. Your response to this thread along with the other I started is getting me a bit closer to a decision about how best to proceed. It's all much appreciated!