How Can I Prevent Fading & Flaking Of Minkus Global Albums?

I have a number of Minkus Global Albums (Master & Supreme) in my collection. Most of the older ones have lost much of their original beauty: loss of red & gold color vibrancy, blue flaking of the cover cloth (especially along the cover-to-spine folds), etc. Too late to do anything about it.
But recently, I came across a number of beautiful, new-looking Minkus Global albums. Perhaps the original owners of my old albums were just abusive, but I doubt it. Does anyone have any experience with trying to prevent (or slow) this usage damage?
I'm considering spray painting them with a clear coat, but not sure what type (latex, acrylic, etc.), whether this will dissolve the album's color and text, with the clear itself "yellow" with time, if this will look even worse, etc.
Thoughts or experiences welcome!

Are these all the older rounded back binders?

Clear coat may or may not stick well and may not be much help anyway. The main problem is that the albums are heavy, so the boards often twist slightly and scuff, and the edges wear easily, especially when handled often. The second is that the cloth and overlying paint is not particularly sturdy. The wear and tear you note is normal and expected.

A row of shiney pristine binders might be seen as a sign of someone who doesn't do much with their collection, I have been known to touch in bare card on my Windsor binders with a felt tip pen but it doesnt'alleviate the distressed look very much. A bookbinder might be able to recover them but the cost would probably exceed the cost of rep;acements. I haven't got a single binder I bought new, so many people are buying and breaking up collections that I have been able to get all the binders I need as fine used. Perhaps you need to ask and shop around for unwanted Minkus binders.
Painting the covers would possibly alter the nature of the materials they are made of and make them brittle or age even more noticeably after a while. In archives I have seen plans that were given a coat of shellac varnish (french polish) to make them wipe clean when they were new. Now a century later they disintegrate when they are handled and are sometimes just a heap of flakes in a labelled box.

From personal experience, book rescue by the ungifted amateur is worse than the problem! If you glance at a bookcase, you'll tend to find faded spine lettering, scuffed edges etc everywhere. Sun, dust, time all have their way with more expensive productions than Minkus's.

Yes, they are the round spined (older) ones. They look so sharp new. I have a few in a medium grade condition -- perhaps I'll give them a go first and see how it looks and holds up to some heavy (simulated) use. Of course no test is really the same as time. Still, it works for my old cars ;)

I actually like the beat up look on old albums - have some Scott IPSA from the 1940s that the binders look like they went through WWII themselves. Just on the outside, the stamps are all good.

Older well worn things tell a story. They have character.

Old well-worn books do show that someone was interested in them and got some honest use out of them. You can rebind them, of course; that's expensive nowadays. However, the way the Minkus (or Scott) binder mechanism is built, that might break up the album before rebinding is called for.

The reverse wear test is when you encounter somebody's bookshelf filled with bright pristine older albums, Scott or Minkus. You will find they were never used and never touched after years.

And for the auto wear test, a lot of people get excited at the beautiful US cars from the 50s in tropical Cuba. They're repainted over a lot of Bondo, rechromed and otherwise patched together, with little original.

The old Global albums with the gold and red decor were very attractive but IMO cheaply made. As I remember the whole Minkus product line was sort of a step down in quality from Scott, but a cut above Harris.

I have the Amos reprints of the first two volumes. I think the binders they have now are better quality. You may want to look at moving these.

As Stamps1962 says, Minkus albums were made to sell to a particular price point, and that point was aimed below Scott albums, their main competitor. Minkus albums were less expensive because their paper was thinner and their binders may have been less sturdy, as well. And for their worldwide albums, the excessively enormous size clearly puts a strain on the hinges in ways smaller binders would not have. The albums also get dropped more easily. And in a filled binder, the pages bulge out against the spines, breaking them. They were certainly not designed for extremely long-term use. I own dozens of Scott albums and dozens more Minkus albums, and the latter are nearly all ripped along the hinges and otherwise worn.

You can "rescue" an old binder without having an experienced bookbinder redo the hinge and touch-up the color which is going to be much too expensive. I've had some luck with my own repairs to some of my album binders.

If I have an otherwise good looking album with a weak hinge or some other minor problems, here's what I do to keep it looking good:

To reinforce the hinge area, I use "gaffer's tape" that matches the color of the album pretty closely. Do NOT use "duct tape" for this. The glue will eventually leak and with an album filled with stamps, that's not going to be good. Also, duct tape is designed to be torn by hand, so it's not all that sturdy. Cloth gaffer's tape is what you want. It seems to hold well and I've found it lasts.

For Scott binders, I use dark blue or dark green in 1" or 1.5" widths. For Minkus, get whatever color you need (black I think). ebay and Amazon both sell this tape.

I apply one continuous piece along the outside of the hinge, bending it inside the album about an inch or so at top and bottom of the hinged area before cutting it. Use sharp scissors so all cuts are neat and tidy. Then I trim any excess away from the rod opening inside the cover by using a very sharp cutting tool or sharp scissors again, being careful to be very neat.

Apply another long piece, but somewhat shorter, to the inside of the hinge. Cover the "inch or so" of the other tape at top and bottom, but go no further. This way, the entire inside and outside of the hinged part of the binder gets new tape to strengthen the hinge.

It's important to be sure the album will still close and open, so test the flexibility after the first piece of tape is applied and adjust as needed. After the tape is applied, I sometimes close the binder and let it sit for awhile to stretch the tape a little and make it open and close easily. Using a hair dryer along the tape will soften and help stretch it if you need to do that.

For areas at the very top and bottom of the spine where color has worn away, I use a matching color 'Sharpie' or other permanent marker very carefully and in small amounts to darken the fabric back to its original color. I would not try to add any new color elsewhere as it's going to look messy and unappealing -- except for very small amounts of missing color.

For small amounts of missing color, you can "dot" the Sharpie into that area very judiciously and it will fool the eye enough to look better. Don't "wipe" or smear it as that will be very visible. Just use "dots" since you're not filling the area, just darkening it a little. Don't go wiping marker color all over the album cover. That will look awful.

On some older Yvert & Tellier albums I have, I was able to restore the shiny black paper covered boards and the red cloth corner pieces pretty much the same way but more extensively. For areas where the shiny black cover paper had ripped off, I painted on new gloss black paint which matched the color of the cover. A few coats. For the red corners, I masked off the edges of the surrounding area and used dark red permanent markers to color the missing red. Once it was all dry, the albums now look close to new from a few feet away. The cost was negligible and fun to do.

On a Minkus album, painting may not work because the material is cloth and you have the red and gold to contend with. But you can certainly experiment on your worst binder and see if you can manage it. You could mask off the rest of the album, and spray or brush paint the front and back covers and see what you end up with. Spray painting is pretty messy if you're not careful (work outside!), but you do get a smoother surface without brush marks. You might need to apply a primer first for the new paint to adhere to, and before that you'd need to clean the covers first with a degreaser to get it all to stick. Rubbing alcohol is a good degreaser. Let us know if you do. Otherwise, except for hinge repair and some minor coloring of worn areas on the spine, I'd just live with it.

The alternative (but much less fun) would be to buy brand new binders which will instantly solve your problem. Or buy used but good condition Minkus binders on ebay.

Have fun. That's the whole point.