A Little Miffed With Mystic

I have my entire US collection in 8 American Heirloon Collection Mystic albums. I need at least 3 more so was online yesterday to place an order. I could not find them so called Mystic only to be told they no longer supply just the album and now only supply with slipcases. I don't need the slip cases. They have in the past supplied empty albums. Any one have any new or used albums they would like to part with?

I would say keep an eye on ebay as they appear fairly regularly. Here's a set of 3 binders that sold within the last 2 weeks at IMO a not unreasonable price:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mystic-Hei...AOSwFD5fTA6f

Thanks Revcolletor. Those are the wrong ones, I neglected to say that mine are the premium version with the simulated leather. Sorry for the omission.

Ahh, sorry my bad. Same principle applies though. Keep an eye out on the Bay.

That's funny. Mystic used to sell a basic vinyl-covered slipcase used for the fancier version of their U.S. ring binder albums. You could buy the slipcase separately at about $15 each. The box they came in indicated that they were Lighthouse slipcases either made for Mystic or a standard size Mystic had just adopted. But Mystic stopped selling them separately. When I called, I was told that now they would only sold them with the binders -- as a set. No one could tell me why, but that was their new policy. I even wrote them a long letter asking them to sell the slipcases (and presumably the binders, too) separately, but no dice. They won't do it. It seems a bit silly to pass up sales of products like this, but maybe they ended up with too many of one or the other and it bothered someone for some reason. If I ended up with too many of something I'd have a "sale" and get rid of them. Maybe Mystic doesn't know you can do that?

I had ordered some slip cases years back when I first got the Mystic and some were damaged on arrival. They did not have much internal bracing inside the slip case (easier to crush) and minimal cushion material in larger carton. I would see shipping with a binder reduces shipping damage. It also helps reduce stocking space. The slip cases can take up a lot of space so selling together reduces that and may get a better price.

Not only that, but either Mystic or the manufacturer may have realized time and/or cost savings by changing to having the binder and slipcase pre-packaged/cartoned as a set from the manufacturer and it wouldn't be worth the expense of separating.

And yet they did separate them and sell them separately for years. I bought a lot of slipcases from Mystic, perhaps 30-40 all told. So apparently selling them separately did work just fine somehow.

The slipcases I received were never damaged in any way, so that wasn't a problem with my orders. In fact, they arrived in excellent shape in their original Lighthouse shipping boxes, all nicely supported by extra pieces of cardboard. I receive far more delicate items all the time undamaged, so I'm not sure why a stamp album slipcase is anything special. If Mystic is the shipper, then fill the slipcase with newspaper, put it in a box, and mail it. That's how Amos Advantage ships my Scott album slipcases. And they all arrive in perfect condition And there's also bubble wrap and so on . . . .

As for storing each binder inside a slipcase to save warehouse space, my slipcase orders were either shipped directly from Lighthouse or shipped from Mystic in their original Lighthouse shipping boxes which had never been opened. In other words, they stored large boxes of slipcases in their original shipping boxes rather than opening each one and pairing it up with a binder -- which would be far more laborious and you'd think would require far more room. So more convenient storage doesn't seem to have been a problem. I think their decision was simply to force buyers to purchase a set at a higher price rather than just the binders which was a common way for collectors to save money. I even asked Mystic about a collector whose slipcase (or binder) got damaged. Would they sell a replacement without the other part? "No," they would not, they said, . you'd have to buy the set to replace the one damaged item. Kind of seems like shooting yourself in the foot to me.