My Mystic Heirloom Albums Arrived Today

Two months ago, I was seeking ways to liquidate my childhood collection. Now quite the opposite has happened, and I'm back on the "sauce." To replace my deteriorating Minkus All American album, I ordered the Mystic Heirloom 3-volume set, which arrived today.

This is a low-intensity rant. Please comment, if you are inclined.

Each of the three loose-leaf binders come absolutely jam-packed with somewhat thin pages. Aside from that, printing and design are nice. My concern is this: once I start adding stamps in their display mounts, the contents will be too much for these binders. I'm thinking the optimal capacity per binder would be only two-thirds of the present page count. Mystic was prescient about this matter, as they included with my order a discount coupon for spare binders .

The paper in these albums is thin; real thin IMO. When I used them I bought lot of sheet protectors for them. That will mean buying a couple of extra binders as well. It is worth it. I assume you got the non hingeless pages. On those, the frame lines on the album spaces are roomy enough to permit you to neatly frame a stamp in a mount. If you use black mounts the effect is real nice.

It is supposed to 70 pound paper.

If only...

Funny, I just checked out their site and find - premium album and slipcover but not a word about the pages. Salesmanship, it's all in the wording.

Personslly I would rather have the heavy card stock pages and standard Vinyl binders. Using sheet protectors or covers really bulks up albums fast, sometimes they yellow, and realisticly probably will add up to the same cost of heavier card pages if you had gotten them in the beginning.

You could always scan and save copies of the pages before you use them. And if one gets torn or damaged, you could just print another one.

Not good pages, as you've discovered. It's a good idea when you realize you've made a mistake, to correct it. Send them back and find a better solution. Otherwise, as you've said, you're going to spend the money on the albums and a great deal of time mounting stamps only to find after awhile that it doesn't really work well. Pages loaded with mounts and stamps require a fairly sturdy weight of paper to support them. Your alternative is to not use stamp mounts, but to use hinges which is a perfectly fine idea although it will give some people who are obsessed with "unhinged" stamps a heart attack. Your choice. I know what I'd do.

For the price, the Mystic album is still one of the best bargains around and they do not get you later on supplements. The page quality is on par with peer albums but it is on the thin side (about 4.6 mils). This is not an almost $600 Scott National album with similar coverage.

Yep, you will need more binders but you can find used ones even with slip cases on ebay for less. You will find that Mystic sells their premium binder and slipcase for almost the same price as their standard binder and slipcase.

Another option is just to buy 5 Lighthouse G binders with slip cases for under $140 since they Mystic will end up at $35 each. They do not offer quantity discount like set of 5 - I asked.

I own the Mystic Heirloom. If I had to do it again, I would have got the Mystic hingeless album and recommend slip cases. With the standard page size, I can easily add matching pages.

The plot thickens. There are some quality control issues. I've already begun email outreach to Mystic; I'm hopeful they will reply on Monday.

I'm still leafing through the many pages. Volume I has two sets of the pages covering 1961-1974, while the pages for 1974-1983 are completely missing.

I chose the Mystic product because of the reviews found in this forum; note especially https://goscf.com/t/17127. I'm already nostalgic for my two-post Minkus American single-volume album, despite its few shortcomings. Might have to roll up my sleeves and make my own album(s) using the Minkus as a template... I'd be okay with that.

BFRomeos,

I migrated from the All American to Mystic same as you. Did you order the Premium or the Standard version? I have the Premuim and am very happy with it. I am up to sixteen Premium volumes and plan to stop at the end of this year. 2019 will be when the last volume will be full and I'm stopping there. I've been getting only five years of stamps in a volume since the year 2000. Ridiculous, as Judge Judy says.

By the way, I still have my All-American.

Jack Kelley

Jack,

I got the standard version, but the "premium" product description offers the same 70-lb page weight. I have my doubts about binder durability in either case.

So... pending a forthcoming resolution from Mystic, I'm back to album (and/or material) shopping. Putting my stamp acquisitions on hiatus until I sort out the album quandary (and my DIY basement remodelling too, for that matter).

I've never understood Mystic classifying the paper in these as 70 lb. If they were any thinner you could see through them.

A remedy is underway.

Mystic: After consultation with their customer service, I'm returning the (3) Heirloom U.S. album pages and binders, plus all the sweeteners they added to the package. I took issue with the thinness of the paper as well as the flimsiness of the binders, which are the exact same products finds on the shelves of an office supply store. The reps (communicating via email and phone) were quite good about the return. Dropped $27 to mail it back

The Solution: I visited my nearest brick-and-mortar stamp & coin shop. The guy was quite accommodating and showed me a variety of options. I walked out with pages for the Scott National album - covering the years 1845 (provisionals) up through 1993. I really don't care to do the self-adhesive stuff.

The Scott National (for the few of you who don't know) is a serious, no-nonsense product. The page thickness is superior to what's in the Mystic album - but still could be a bit heavier. Pages are not numbered, which I perceive as an advantage. The Scott album is highly inclusive of derivative issues that I didn't even know existed, having grown up with the Minkus All American. There's actually more pages than I want, given its coverage of various revenue stamps.

Absent are the chirpy captions and illustrations to which I was accustomed in my old Minkus album. If Dragnet's Sgt. Joe Friday designed and maintained a U.S. stamp album, it would be something very much like the Scott National ("Just the facts, ma'am.")

The dealer had no binders at the time, so I went online to obtain two Scott binders, the type with the parallel metal piano hinges on either side of the spine.

So much for giving up the hobby...

Good to hear you are happy.

Something else you might want to add are the matching slipcases for the binders.

Also, if you purchased EVERYTHING for the Scott National Series, you might need another binder or two. I say this because I noticed you mentioned revenues...

Stampman2002:

"Yes" to slipcases (soon). I'll probably pass on more binders as I'm not inclined to chase after revenues, ducks stamps, etc. Lotsa fun with what I got....

Good for you. The Scott National album is excellent and compared to many other U.S. albums, it's almost a bargain. I do realize not everyone can afford a stamp album, hence the cheaper Mystic album which many people use. The more expensive hingeless Mystic album is the better one, though, but so expensive I would never buy it, preferring the Scott National album.

Although a lot of Mystic products seem overpriced to me, somewhat ironically (I suppose) I used to buy from Mystic slipcases they sold which fit all the Scott Specialty and National albums perfectly and which only cost $15. Compare that to Scott's own slipcases which cost about twice the price. This slipcase was made by Lighthouse (in Germany) and was the DC397 "model" of Lighthouse's slipcases. I bought about 30 for all my different Scott albums, hence my concern over price. Large Scott binders do not fit these slipcases, but their older "medium" sized binders fit just fine and those are the ones I generally use. And they look good. But when I tried to reorder another box of them recently, Mystic told me they'd stopped selling them -- for some reason no one seemed to know.

I only mention this to note that there are bargains to be had (or there WERE) and that there's a connection between Scott's very good albums and Mystic Stamp Company which has a competing U.S. album. But no more great slipcases that fit some Scott binders, apparently. Seems a little short-sighted to me not to sell a product people want.