Scott Pony Express Album Vs. Minuteman

Hello,

I've been looking at getting back into stamp collecting. I have a Scott Pony Express album I got as a kid as a museum souvenir but I can't find much about it online now. From what I can tell I'm guessing the Pony Express was a Scott's beginner's kit that included the basic collecting equipment.

Some of the pages of my Pony Express album are in rough shape, and it only goes up until the early 1990s, so I'm looking at moving into a nicer and up-to-date album.

I read through the Album Review thread to see what I might want to switch to, and likely am switching to a Scott Minuteman as it seems to be the most similar, but I was wondering if anyone knew if there were any major differences between the Minuteman and the Pony Express pages in terms of content, layout, how they handle se-tenants? Was the Pony Express a more basic version of the Minuteman? I was a little surprised to see that it's even possible to get Pony Express supplements from Amos, which made me think there's got to be some difference between the two.

My apologies if there's an existing thread about these two. I tried searching the forum for details on the Pony Express album but I think I only got one thread that mentioned it in passing, and everything else was about pony express-themed stamps, and there's not much I could find about the Pony Express album on the rest of the web either.

Thanks!

Aren't the Pony Express pages double-sided? That's not what you'd want ideally since it rubs stamps against stamps and can cause damage. You could add interleaving, of course. I think the Pony Express was designed as Scott's entry-level album, and those sorts of albums often don't age well as collectors accumulate more stamps and become more knowledgeable. Then they have to face the prospect of transferring all the stamps they've mounted into a more complete or more polished type of album. That can be a bit laborious.

When I was a kid, I knew the top of the Scott range of albums for U.S. stamps was the National album, so that's what I saved up for and bought. I've had it for well over 50 years and have never regretted it once. And I don't have to transfer stamps from one album to another!

The Minuteman complete album sells at Scott (Amos Advantage) for about $250 while the National costs close to twice that much. But the thing is you can easily buy different sets of pages separately (there's about 5 sets covering all those years) and you can buy good condition used binders on ebay to lower your overall cost and spread it out over a few months or longer. A little patience and you could have a nicer album, the best Scott sells for U.S. stamps. Well, they also sell a Schaubek (German) album, but it's super expensive. So you don't have to buy the entire album at once. Occasionally you even see new (or "newish") National album pages for sale on ebay.


The Pony Express and Minuteman come in vinyl-covered binders, if I recall correctly. Those will generally not hold up well over the years. Vinyl stretches and cracks and you may have to buy a new binder. A well-cared for National binder should last for decades. I'm still using my original National binder from over 50 years ago, but I'm pretty careful with it. I also have at least four other National binders, all bought used but in very good shape, so I spread my collection out more comfortably.

National pages are punched for both 2-post (my choice) or 3-ring binders. An advantage of 3-ring binders is the pages will lay flat, and that makes it a lot easier to mount stamps. I use the 2-post binders mainly because I started with them. I also like the look of those binders more than the larger ring binders which seem too large to me. But you can put Scott's 3-ring pages into almost any large 3-ring binder as some collectors do.

I think both the Pony Express and Minuteman are only two-hole punched. So you have no choice there. I find the system of metal posts held by vinyl flaps in vinyl binders not a very sturdy system. Over time, the pages get uneven as the vinyl holes stretch. But I suppose it depends somewhat on how careful you are. The vinyl binder system is clearly designed to lower production costs so that may be worth thinking about.

The Minuteman is a very nice album. Some collectors like the little descriptions under each stamp in that album. It may be useful to beginners to know that information. For me, I don't need it, it seems a little elementary and it gets in the way too much for my taste. By that I mean it kind of clutters up the page and takes up valuable space where a stamp or two might go. I do like when stamps are identified or labeled, but don't like the little stories. You might find them helpful, though.

Either album will be fine, but clearly they are a little different.

Someone is bound to mention that Mystic Stamp Co. sells a U.S. 3-ring album which many collectors use. I've looked at them, and they're fine as basic albums but it seems to me the 3-ring holes will tear after awhile on the relatively light pages in those binders, but maybe that's not true. You do want reasonably heavy pages so they'll last for years. Mystic also sells a more expensive version of their same album on heavier paper with much nicer binders. I think that version has mounts already on the pages. I think it's even more expensive than the Scott National album! I imagine if you buy the basic album you might kind of wish you could have afforded the nicer version of the album. But I don't know the Mystic albums very well, so go to the Mystic website and have a look.

Someone will also urge you to look at print-your-own pages by Steiner. You buy his CD or subscribe to his website for a year (It's about $60) and you print his page layouts on your own paper. Nothing wrong with that. But it's not "free" which you sometimes hear people say about using Steiner pages. You have to subscribe, and you need to buy good quality paper in a heavy weight (typically about 60# or so) and you'll need good quality 3-ring binders. So figure "around" $100 for a U.S. album you print yourself. But I like pictures of the stamps on my album pages, and Steiner almost never uses any. So that's worth considering. Also Steiner albums seem to get printed on 8 1/2 x 11" stand printer paper by most people, a size I think is just much too small for nice page layouts. But you could print his pages on larger size paper if you have a "wide bed" printer. I think that would make them look better. Which is why the albums you're considering, plus the Scott National album, use larger page sizes. They look nicer.

Clearly, I'd get the Minuteman or try to afford the Scott National album by buying each part over time. It will last you a lifetime. The Minuteman will be fun, too, but it might not be a lifetime album. Also look at what Mystic Stamp Co. sells since you might like that album just as well.

Good luck, and have fun!

I have a Mystic Heirloom Album (lists at $59.95 but sell lower in ads) and still think is a great buy but you will need to purchase extra binders immediately. A lay flat design is a must for me and I did own a National previously. National supplements were expensive (often replacing pages each year). Mystic is almost 1/3 less. I also create my own pages to supplement the Mystic pages so a standard size is also important. The paper is thinner (4.7 mils or so).

Mystic sells an upscale hingeless that gets very pricey but they do sell it without the mounts for much less upon request. It is not listed on their website.

Thanks for the detailed replies! They give me a lot of information to think over. After seeing so little information about the Pony Express album in general online I was almost expecting to get a "sorry, never heard of it, you're on your own!" reply back, haha.

I have my girlfriend to thank for me getting back into stamp collecting - she took a course in how to make collage art a few months ago and the instructor gave out stamps to use in their project one day, so I fished out my collection at my parents' to see if I had any stamps I didn't need for her to use as well. Found some stamps that I never got around to mounting, some pages that had been scrawled on with a pen by someone ages ago (thankfully not on any stamps!) that look just awful and should be replaced, and had such a good time looking through and mounting that I ended up here. Unfortunately I didn't bring my collection back home with me so any work will have to wait until I can next visit my parents to retrieve it but that gives me plenty of time to think about what collection to move to in the meantime. My dad saw me working on my collection so he also got his stamp collection back out, and he's been working on his since then as well (he's got several Harris Liberty binders, and come to think of it I've never really looked at his collection to see how it compares, but I don't know if I'd like the two-post binders).

Yes, the Pony Express pages are double-sided. I didn't think they were off the top of my head, and since I don't have my album with me at the moment I had to refer to a picture I took of my album when I got it back out and yup, they are. They're also three-hole-punched. I kind of enjoy having the descriptions of each stamp as a little caption for each as well, and that was one of my concerns about the National. I remember someone saying in the album review thread that they wished that Scott put out something like the Minuteman but with the quality of the National, and if that were an option I'd totally go for it! But if the Minuteman pages are basically the same as the Pony Express except single-sided I think it'll be perfect for my needs as I'm a very casual collector.

I did consider the Mystic Heirloom both for cost and since it seems to have better paper than the Minuteman, but I don't know how I feel about having the art/description on the opposite page. It seems to be more of an issue for folks interleaving pages, causing the description to separate from the stamps, and I don't expect I'll be doing any of that, so that may be a good option. Those hingeless Heirloom sets look nice, though, and the idea of a hingeless Heirloom without mounts is pretty tempting. Definitely a lot more volumes than I have room for at the moment, unfortunately!

gfitzp...I have both the Mystic American Heirloom hingeless and nonhingeless albums. I basically have two separate US collections, one mint and one used. I use the hingeless versions for my mint collection and the nonhingeless versions for my used collection. If you are planning on collecting mainly mint stamps, I can't recommend the hingeless version highly enough. For the price, it can't be beat. You didn't specify whether you are planning on collecting mint or used stamps, so I'll include a few observations on albums for used collections. If you plan on trying to collect mainly used US issues, the Mystic nonhingeless Heirloom may not be the best choice for you, especially for the more recent issues. The albums only have spots for blocks and souvenir sheets with no places for the individual stamps. You can place the stamps over the correct spot on the souvenir sheet, but that doesn't look very good. Also, you have to buy a seperate album for BOB issues, with the exception of airmails.

Because of this, I'm going to look into the Harris Liberty albums for my used US collection. If I remember correctly, the Liberty that I had as a youth had spots for both blocks and singles and I'm hoping that this is also the case for the recent souvenir sheets. This is something that I've yet to check on, though. Another point in the Liberty's favor is that they include pages for BOB issues. You mentioned that the Liberty may not be right for you because of its 2 post design, but the newly produced Liberty pages are punched for both 2 post and 3 ring binders. Harris is also offering 3 ring Liberty binders as well so you may wish to consider them.

I have no experience with the Scott Minuteman album, but do have several Scott specialty albums and can attest to their quality. Also, Scott has recently introduced specialty US album pages for used stamps which have places for singles only.

As Coastwatcher says, looking at which stamps an album has spaces for is kind of important. An album might require a block of four -- or four singles. Some albums might require both. It depends on what you want to collect.

Paper quality is really important. Cheap paper tends to wrinkle, rip at the holes, and wear out. The heavy, sturdy pages used in albums like Lighthouse and Schaubek and others can last a lifetime. The pages in the Scott National and Specialty albums seem the sturdiest among affordable albums. The Pony Express, Liberty, and other albums used to have a "beginner" look to them, and that included thinner pages. Or maybe they just wore out because they were often owned by kids who are rough on things? In any case, transferring all your stamps from an album that has worn out to a sturdier album isn't the most fun thing to do. But maybe the pages in these albums are more heavy duty today. When an album is a few years old, will the pages hold up?

I like all my albums to have slipcases. They protect the album from dirt and dust (and paper-eating bugs) and they catch any stamps that accidentally fall out! Scott sells slipcases for all its albums and they aren't super expensive. A lot of other albums don't. The Mystic albums do have slipcases, at least the more expensive ones. To me, slipcases are worth buying -- if they're available.

As for 2-posts vs. 3-rings (or multiple rings), there isn't a "best" choice. But there are personal preferences. I debated for a long time over lay-flat pages or pages that would be somewhat curved. I like pages that lay flat, so ring binders seemed preferable. I bought a few and tried them out. Unfortunately, when I actually used them, I was a little disappointed.

The pages did lay flat. But I didn't like the sight of those rings. They just got in the way. We collect because we love the look of stamps. With those rings, the album reminded me of school notebooks. But maybe I'm old-fashioned. My taste may not be yours.

Scott sells a small 3-ring binder and a large 3-ring binder. I do like the small binder because the rings don't overwhelm the pages too much. An album in that size binder would look pretty good. But they only hold about 100 pages, so I'd need at least a few for each country and that could get expensive.

So why not use the large 3-ring binder which holds more than twice as many pages? I got one of the large binders, too, but the size of the rings was waaay too big for my taste. It made an elegant album look like a warehouse receipt book. The large Scott ring binder is very big. It won't fit on a normal bookshelf. Filled with pages, it's also very heavy. A full binder is difficult for me to lift off the bookshelf with one hand. For me, the large 3-ring Scott binder just wouldn't work.

Another thing I discovered as I played around with ring binders is that the pages can get hung up on the rings. Even a smallest effort to 'pull' the page around the rings can pulls on the paper. And sometimes when the holes get hung up, the paper can tear a little. It gets really bad when the rings aren't joined together perfectly, so the rough edge scrapes the hole as you turn the page. Remember in your school binder how by the end of the year, the paper was often torn at the rings? I'd hate my album to look like that.

Even with a padded cover, a lot of ring binders aren't really much different from office supply store binders! I bought a few Lighthouse Vario binders, smaller 3-ring binders. I liked the nice padded covers and they come with slipcases. But over the last few years I've become tired of them for the reasons I've mentioned here -- including the problem of hard to turn pages and ripping the holes when the pages get hung up. The pages in 2-post binders don't lay flat but they don't have that problem.

Even in 2-post binders, the page holes can wear but if you're at all careful that's not as likely to happen. You're not pulling the pages over the posts. You're just turning the page. The holes shouldn't move much. And if you use cardboard page spacers to snug the stack of pages up, it will work well. You can't do that in a ring binder.

The small Scott ring binders are pretty nice. But, so far, I prefer 2-post binders. I'd always used Scott 2-post binders, so I knew how they worked -- even if the pages don't lay flat. They're less likely to tear the page holes -- and you don't see big metal rings in the middle of everything. I've learned to not get too upset by the curved pages! Putting fewer pages in each binder helps solve that problem.

Scott pages also fit into both their 2-post and 3-ring binders. So if I wanted to, I could change from one binder to another in just a few minutes.

I also looked at multiple-ring albums common in Europe. I really like the 22-ring albums which I find are the best of all the choices. But they're expensive to buy and not easy to get in the U.S. So, except for my blank albums, they're out

So I use 2-post binders. Everything's a compromise of some kind.

As for descriptions of stamps, I know what each of my stamps were issued for. It's in the catalogue, and I've been collecting for years. The heading above each stamps is enough for me. If I had those longer descriptions beneath each stamp, it would be fine for a few years, I suppose, but then I'd be done with them and want to turn them "off".

Of the choices you're considering, any one will work out fine. And it may depend more on what you can afford. Consider not buying the entire album all at once and you can afford a better album. Or do what many of us do -- buy one, use it for a few years, and then completely change your mind and start over with a different album!

Thanks all for the detailed info! It's definitely given me some things to think about, especially as I'm not quite ready to buy my album and the Minuteman is currently out of stock at iHobb. Thanks again!