My coin album collection - out on the bookshelf for first time in >15 years

Mr_Spud

I’ve been keeping them in Tupperware with desiccant ever since we moved near the beach with no air conditioning because I didn’t want the coins to get ruined from high humidity.

But last year we got whole house air conditioning so I’m going to try storing them on a bookshelf. I’ll monitor them and if I see any bad spotting or too dark toning I’ll put them back into Tupperware.

I’m really liking how they look on the shelf, makes me want to finish filling the holes I still have in some of them. Here’s what they look like on the shelf. As you can see, the Wayte Raymond/ Meghrig albums are my favorites. The 2 horizontal boxes on the upper shelf have 2 more of the large Meghrig albums in them, same size as the 2 on top of the boxes.

The newest addition is the extra wide Meghrig deluxe album on the left lower shelf. These were made exclusively for Stacks and hold up to 10 boards. This one was the extra deluxe one made with calfskin.

Russell12

The "Official US Mint" albums were the best ones ever made, to bad they are discontinued.

Mr_Spud

@Russell12 said:
The "Official US Mint" albums were the best ones ever made, to bad they are discontinued.

The 2 I have are housing my childhood Lincoln Cent collection, I upgraded them about 20 years ago out of the old beat up Whitman folders I had since I was about 8 years old. I didn’t realize they discontinued them.

gumby1234

Very nice.

NeophyteNumismatist

You are going to be able to enjoy your collection so much more. Congrats!

braddick

Sweet!
I love how you have your Dansco albums each in their own sleeve.

braddick

::Oh::
The Liberty Dimes Dansco is upside down. . .

Jimnight

Good looking set-up.

Mr_Spud

@braddick said:
::Oh::
The Liberty Dimes Dansco is upside down. . .

Thanks, I just fixed that 😉

DNADave

What do you have here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.

Shamika

Mr. Spud - I love what you're showing us. The calfskin album is special.

Mr_Spud

@DNADave said:
What do you have here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.

That’s the “Exclusively made for Stacks” Wayte Raymond Album with calfskin leather covered binder that holds up to 10 coin boards. I read about these in David Lange’s book on Wayte Raymond/Meghrig albums, they are fairly rare. I just got that one recently off of eBay. Here’s some of the auction pictures

seanq

That Bookshelf album for Great Britian Silver Type is a tough one, both to find and to fill. I would love to get a peek at what you have inside it, especially the last page withe the Maundy coinage.

I have a soft spot for the old Meghrig / Wayte Raymond books too, I have been tempted to move my childhood Dansco Lincolns into one. I also recently picked up a cheap partial set of Barber Halves in a Meghrig album, by the time I factored in the value of the album on its own I basically paid melt for the coins.

Sean Reynolds

Mr_Spud

@seanq said:
That Bookshelf album for Great Britian Silver Type is a tough one, both to find and to fill. I would love to get a peek at what you have inside it, especially the last page withe the Maundy coinage.

That album actually is damaged and in need of repair. It’s empty right now, missing the slides and the binding needs reglued, but I have several coins in 2x2s for that album. I also found 3 more British Whitman albums in a different Tupperware container that I found right after I took the pictures above. I also bought some acid free book binding glue and some Klucel G that repairs cracks in the folds and edges as well as some leather/fabric polish that inhibits mildew today off of eBay after reading up on how to repair/restore and care for antique books. I’m going to repair the British Silver Type Set album as well as refurbish a few of the Wayte Raymond albums that have cracks on their spines. I’ve been maintaining the Wayte Raymond albums by rubbing the album covers with mineral oil about once a year, and this has been working well, but I decided to go all out. I even bought a special kind of shoe polish called Meltonian that the professional book restorers use to recolor any cracks in the spines and on the edges after you repair them. I bought brown for the Wayte Raymond ones and imperial blue for the Whitman albums, you apply it by dabbing with a q-tip after you repair them with the Klucel-G according to the experts. Klucel-G is alcohol soluble cellulose that physically rebinds any cracks or tears in the covers. I’m familiar with Klucel because I’ve used it at work as a binder for making Pharmaceutical and Dietary Supplement tablets so I think I can handle using it on the album covers properly.

Those 3 other British albums I have (technically they are Mrs_Spuds, but I’m the one who maintains them) are in much better shape and have several coins in them. The Great Britian Minor Type Set has the last page dedicated to Maundy coins, but it’s empty right now. I’m not sure if we have any of the Maundy ones, but I think we do have a couple at least.

Now that I have all my albums out I’m planning on going through my many boxes of raw coins in 2x2s and start filling the rest of the holes in all of the albums. It was too hard, unorganized, when the albums were in storage in the Tupperware containers. I’m in the process of organizing my horde

Here’s pictures of the 3 British albums that I found after taking the pictures above.

ricko

What a great collection of albums, and thanks for the pictures. Looks as if you have a 'project' for a while... Cheers, RickO

seanq

Thanks for the pics, I collect the empty Bookshelf albums but recently in organizing my own hoard I decided to try and fill some duplicate foreign albums. I had quite a few British books that I had purchased partially filled, I ended up consolidating two of the Minor albums into one. I think there were a couple of Twopence Maundy coins. and several Threepence which are likely business strikes.

Great advice on how to care for the books as well, I may follow up with you to see how your restoration efforts go so I can follow your lead with my own books.

Sean Reynolds

Steven59

Great collection - Great pictures.