Scott/Schaubek USA Hingeless Alternatives

I have a set of the Scott/Schaubek US hingeless albums with supplements up thru 2023. I have been ordering the annual supplements from Amos every year but am finding that the availability keeps getting worse and worse. I sent in an order for the 2024 supplement in March of this year and and still waiting for it to ship. The last update from Amos was that they were waiting on the mounts and were expecting them this month (Dec). I'm wondering if there might be other alternatives. Does Scott publish US supplements for other Scott US albums that are punched for the Scott/Schaubek binders that I could then buy my own mounts and install them myself? It defeats the idea of a hingeless album but I might be able to complete the supplement a lot quicker.

No. The partnership consisted of Scott providing the plates for layout and Schaubek building the albums using their proprietary album designs. The best you can do besides creating your own pages is to purchase pages from Schaubek with the Country heading printed. These will be blank because even Schaubek does not have the 2024 supplement pages. I kind of wonder if they still have any relationship anymore. Schaubek does have their own hingeless US albums but still no 2024 pages. Besides which the Schaubek volume one album alone is over 1000 USD.

rogdcam - Thanks for the reply. I have an 11x17 HP printer/scanner and some Scott/Schaubek blank pages identical to the ones in the hingeless albums. I thought about buying something like a 2024 Scott US National supplement and then generating my own pages using the blank sheets. I would still have to buy mounts but they are normally readily available. I am a little concerned that the original publisher may stop issuing supplements altogether in the not-too-distant future and I will be forced to generate something on my own every year.

I'm afraid this is where we're headed in the not-too-distant future. Demand is down, costs are up, supply chain/imports are in flux, etc. As Rog alluded to, creating your own pages might be the way to go.

DIY gives you the most options. Proprietary binders add to the expense.

It is a circular issue in that increasing numbers of collectors have been creating their own album product which cuts demand for traditional inventory which in turn drives more collectors to find their own solutions when traditional product is unavailable.

As usual for legacy philatelic retailers they missed the boat by not seeing the demand for electronic product and jumping in. Scott for instance already has the electronic album page layouts. Why not create and offer a product that collectors could access at a reasonable price and edit to suit their needs. Add some features that Steiner and others don't in order to show some value. This had to have been done years ago.

I doubt even if the numbers of Scott National buyers doubled it would have much effect on price. I consider price is the key issue. It drove me to Mystic for US and Steiner for worldwide. For those that collect deeper than Scott, it provides flexibility. Mystic likely outsold Scott Minuteman, etc.

As we learned from the recent sale, Amos was not investing much in the business. Jay, now part owner, has already stated they are porting the catalog information into a new database that will provide flexibility to do a lot more. He did not mention anything about albums.

Mystic has 2024 hingeless supplements for their Heirloom album. I recognize it isn't the same as a Shaubeck, but at least it's available.

Scott's album and page supplement prices are one of the lowest in this industry - which may surprise some people. Compared to Yvert, Lighhouse, Lindner, Gibbons, Stender, Davo, Marini (Italy), and others, Scott albums are half their prices or lower. A Lighthouse album for a complete collection of a major country today can easily run between $1k and $2k, about what most collectors spend on their entire stamp collection over a few year period! Scott prices for that same album will rarely exceed $500 including all pages and binders, often a good deal less. Maybe "cheap" isn't the right word (!) but much less expensive certainly is. It's one reason I use Scott albums almost exclusively -- I hate spending money on things that are not "stamps".

When Amos/Scott tried cooperating with Scaubek to make a fancy U.S. album, I sensed from the start that this would not do very well and might not last very long. It's lasted longer than I imagined, though. For one thing, they'd be under the control of Schaubek which actually made the albums -- so how does that benefit Amos Media? Also these albums competed against the other expensive albums but were basically just fancier Scott National albums with the same page layouts. I'm sure a lot of collectors (like me) preferred to use the similar almost identical National album. I like adding my own mounts -- no, really, I do.

As for getting supplements going forward, I wonder if Amos/Scott will even bother to provide them? You could use Scott National supplemens which will be identical except for the hold-punching difference. How you'd hole punch National supplements, I have no idea. But putting National supplements into a Scott binder from now on would certainly work -- if the green Scott binder doesn't look too bad too you. It won't match, but it's still a very good looking album.

Or you can buy a lot of blank Schaubek or Scott pages that fit the Schaubek 13-hole binders, find a few more binders that match what you have now, and use those blank pages from now on.

And finally, you can even print page layouts on the appropriate blank album paper if you want to use something like Bill Steiner's page layouts which are nearly free to use. I do that all the time. First, I save the page layout(s) from PDF's to Word (I use PDF Candy to do this), then change the fonts to match the Scott fonts and print them out on printer paper. Those "originals" I take to Fedex and copy them onto my blank album pages (use the side hopper for large-size paper). They look entirely professional that way and they fit right into my existing albums where such pages are necessary. This has solved my "missing a few pages here and there" problem a number of times. You could even do an entire album this way -- if you're patient one page at a time.

I agree Scott is less expensive than European brands. I looked at some prices and even the beginner stuff is not cheap. Part of this is how people collect and evolve. But these days, cost is relative.

From amosadvantage -
Scott US Minuteman with pocket catalog - $347
International 1840 -1940 - $698
Minkus Global - 1940 to 1952 - $452
Scott National 1845 to 2020 - $725 (inc 4 binders)
Scott country albums run from $300 to $800

Mystic Heirloom is $199 with 5 binders but if you fill you will need more binders since the self-adhesives really use up binder space.

DrewM - I was actually thinking about migrating to the Scott National format and binder as an alternative. However, I looked around online last week and didn't see any of the suppliers that had those binders in stock as a standalone item.

I have some 2 post National binders I want to sell.

There seems to be some kind of backlog on orders of Scott binders and slipcases currently for some reason. Maybe their printer/manufacturer is having problems? I just received three green Scott Specialty slipcases I had not even remembered ordering back in February! Now that is slow delivery. But surely some seller of stamp products has a couple of the very standard Scott National binders for sale?

If not, I see them all the time on ebay, sometimes in very good used condition. In fact, I've bought a few of these myself in very lightly used condition as my U.S. collection grew from one binder (at age 16) to five binders now that I'm an old codger.

Here are two to check out:

https://www.nolastampshop.com/scott...ional-album/

https://www.amosadvantage.com/store...ages/binders

As I noted in the topic I started on Scott binder availability, I received an email reply from Amos today that said that their binders are supposed to arrive in "late January."

It's now late January . . . .

I see lightly-used Scott National binders for sale on ebay all the time. Pick up one or more of those.