Mystic Hingeless Album - A New Wrinkle

I have commented previously on my frustration with this product. I bought volume one some months ago and was disappointed with the quality of the mounts. Many of them stick out from the page when stamps are inserted. I wound up encasing several pages in protectors to compensate for this. I then have completed the balance of the set through part five (1999) by buying these pages with no mounts attached via special order from Mystic and attaching Scott mounts myself. This has worked out well.

This week I called them and asked for quotes on the next two parts as regular pages also adding in a part one thinking I'd go back and re-place the pages I now have for that part and attach my own mounts. I paid $48 per section previously. They came back quoting well over $200 for these pages.

In subsequent discussion it seems because so many others were doing as I had done so they changed their pricing. They now use the hingeless price as a base, deduct the retail cost of the binder/slipcase and the 'cost of the mounts' Thus, part 6 priced in their catalog as hingeless for $154.95 will cost me $108 for the pages. It seems clear, they do not take into account the fact that they are deducting just the raw material cost of the mounts. I am still paying $60 or so higher than before for the same pages I was buying for $48 previously.

I wound up ordering parts 6 and 7 and including postage paid around $198. I paid double what I would have a few months ago and will also need to buy and affix my own mounts. Something just seems off about all this. It seems deliberately designed to discourage others doing what I have. Not a real happy camper right now.

Has anyone else encountered this? I like the album,but this just seems like gouging.

They have realized they were not pricing based upon the hingeless. Now it seems like they are overcharging since you could get a mountless hingeless for well below the selling hingless.

Depending on how they order, it may involve a higher lot charge to create them on special order basis anyway but they may do the mounts in house. They obviously do not want to sell it like their Mystic regular album. Scott seems to price their Schubeck 2005-2009 (88 page) at $180.

Here is how Mystic explained their "policy"

"In January of each year we adjust all pricing in our inventory, and we reviewed these Albums, as we were receiving more "special requests" for these pages without the mounts than we originally thought we would receive. Based on our cost for these "special requests", we created a standard in adjusting the pricing by subtracting the cost of the binder and the cost of the mounts from the original album price. This gives a fair pricing of what the pages without mounts would cost a customer to receive. I apologize for the confusion with this process and appreciate your patience with our inventory pricing adjustments. If you have any further questions or concerns with this please contact our Customer Service..."

I think they got annoyed at all the requests for these pages w/o the mounts. FWIW, the mounts on the section I bought were terrible. I cannot determine what they are, they seem inferior to Hawids or other open top mounts I use. I wonder if thy buy unbranded stuff from China. Maybe if they offered a better quality product customers would be willing to pay for hingeless pages. I also suggested to the contact at Mystic they consider offering pages/albums without the mounts. Since they are getting demand for them maybe they should offer this option. Something just seems strange here, but maybe not. There does see to be a punitive element involved. Not good PR IMO.

They realize they underpriced the pages relative to the other aspects. Pricing is not just based upon cost and heavily influenced by mark up. They should make it a regular product.

I am not defending them on their album pricing but they are very competitive to other products (price, value). The reason you see so many Steiner page users is Scott's pricing. Scott wants $15-$20 just for an annual supplement for albums like Pony Express and Minuteman. You can hingeless from Mystic for that price.

As you know I have a Mystic Heirloom but standard pages with standard binder/slipcases.

Their stamp pricing is another story.

There are additional costs in a production run beyond just the cost of the material. The may not be stocking large runs of the un-mounted pages and are incurring high setup costs.

When I used to change over a production line in my company the setup cost alone was several thousand dollars (just to switch over the line, personal, production documentation, tools, workstations and reconfigure equipment). In a high volume production environment these setup costs were not significant; but obviously this is not the case in any low volume production runs.
Don

Yeah we tend to forget stamp dealers/companies are not Fortune 500 companies and experience expenses we may not be aware of.

I ordered parts 6 and 7 today for a bit over $198. I would have walked away if I hadn't already invested in the other sections up to that point and done the mounting. I know Mystic staff views this forum sometimes and perhaps someone there will consider offering unmounted pages for their customers. Lighthouse and others do this and I just fail to see why this seems such an impossible thing for them to do.

Lighthouse doesn't offer all of its pages in plain format - only some collecting areas.

Geoff, correct. Currently they will sell you their US pages in 'plain' format as well as many sectors of their albums for Germany and the UK. Once you start looking outside of the collection areas of N America and W Europe you will usually find only hingeless.

Interesting thing occurred to me today after doing the math. Following their formula, I used the price they list on their website for some of their hingeless album sections, deducted the binder price and then compared the result to what they quoted me for pages without mounts. In most cases the remaining difference is well under $10. That is supposed to be the cost of the mounts used in the section. One of two things is going on here; either they use very cheap mounts in these albums (which accounts for the low price) or some other factor is involved. Or, it is nonsense.