The creator of the red Continental Line albums and the godfather of the Dansco Supreme Albums

AlbumNerd

The original creator of the Continental Line albums and godfather of the modern-day Dansco Supreme albums has been (re)discovered!

Through doing research at the ANA library, conversations with Ken Bressett, and looking into David Lange's documentation, I now know the story behind the creation of the Continental Line series of albums.

Ervin J. Felix was a coin and stamp expert who worked as the West Coast distributor for Coin & Currency Institute [C&CI] in the 1950s and 60s. After almost a decade of distributing Library of Coins albums for C&CI, he heard a lot of feedback from dealers and collectors on what they liked and disliked about how Library of Coins albums were formatted.

In 1963, Ervin took this feedback and left C&CI to create his own competing set of albums, the now coveted Continental Line series. Given he was in Southern California, he had Dansco manufacture his albums.

The Continental Line series only ran for a few years, but major revisions were made. Such as the red vinyl binder changing to a red faux leather binder. As well as adjusting page ports like removing certain rarities based on customer feedback.

Dansco was so impressed with the quality and success of the Continental Line series, they purchased the rights to it sometime in 1965/66. Dansco would continue the Continental Line series for a short while, but around 1966 they transitioned the Continental Series to the now beloved brown Supreme Albums we know today. This marks Dansco's major transition from mainly folders to albums.

The great irony is that Ervin then joined Whitman in 1966 as their Senior Stamp Editor for a few years. His original creation of the Continental Line series helped Dansco create the brown Supreme Albums, which is still Whitman’s biggest album competitor today.

Mr. Felix passed away in 2006 at age 90 but left a profound impact on the coin album world.

He is the creator of the Continental Line series and the godfather of all modern Dansco albums today. What a legacy.

• Album Nerd/Dansco Dude

Manifest_Destiny

Great info, thanks for the research!

Manifest_Destiny

Interesting that the page layout is identical to the 7070 minus the post 1964 types.

Mr_Spud

Great info, thanks

braddick

I like on some of these earlier albums within the Continental Line his name prominently appears on the inside cover.

The_Dinosaur_Man

It's interesting to see that he started with offering foreign and personalized albums for collectors and helped to promote the hobby of collecting by omitting key dates.

originalisbest

@The_Dinosaur_Man said:
It's interesting to see that he started with offering foreign and personalized albums for collectors and helped to promote the hobby of collecting by omitting key dates.

Not unlike how stamp album manufacturers would have "simplified" albums, so as to not discourage collectors with relatively impossible-to-fill blank spaces staring back at them.

Manifest_Destiny

Found this page. Pretty cool. It also explains why Dansco's gold type page is only 10 coins.

ChrisH821

Unrelated but I find this snippet from the above to be very interesting.

I thought stapled cardboard 2x2's were already in widespread use by 1969.