Vintage Coin Album - Photos of a Bigelow Shoestring Coin Album from 1940s-1950s - Any info on them?

Mr_Spud

Here’s a type of coin album you don’t come across very often. I don’t know much about them, David Lange makes mention of them in his book The National Coin Album & Related Products, but just says they were made in the 40s and 50s and that they were secured with a shoestring. I have more than one, with a bunch more loose pages. The pages are the same size as Wayte Raymond small size boards, but go in the album differently. The black pages look really nice and the whole album presents well in my opinion. I like how you can add as many pages as you want to without stressing out the covers. Does anybody else have any or even any more information about them? If so, please add to this post.

Copperindian

Looks cool & very user friendly. Never saw one of these before!

Mr_Spud

I’m finding very little info on them doing searches online. @davewesen posted this ad from Numismatic Scrapbook in a post about them back in 2018 and said David Lange helped him find the ad, it’s the most I found so far

In the same post, @CaptHenway said there was something about the Bigelow company on the coincollectingboards website, but the site isn’t working anymore. Heres a link to the old post, there is a picture of one similar to mine there too https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1010815/what-company-made-this-old-time-holder

Mr_Spud

I just started looking at random through my copies of The Numismatic Scrapbook and found this ad from 1942 that says James M. Bigelow instead of John K. Bigelow like in the 1951 ad in the post above. Must have been John’s father or relative. So, hot on the trail 😉

johnny9434

That's nice, I like 👍

I've never seen one until now either (or I just don't remember seeing one)

291fifth

That is the first of those I have seen. I wonder how they compared price-wise with the Wayte Raymond albums of the same period? $1 per page was probably expensive by 1951 standards (see the date on one of the ads). Perhaps that is why so few seem to be around.

lilolme

Here is a previous thread from 1630boston with what appears to be the albums and information.
But I don't know if I am missing something as Mr_Spud provided much of the additional information in the thread.
Maybe I need to look closer and are different. But link below:

https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1081809/birth-of-the-the-wayte-raymond-national-coin-album-m-l-beistle

Mr_Spud

@lilolme , that link went to a post about the original Beistle Unique Coin Holder albums that were the original coin albums that were ever invented. They were the forerunners to the Wayte Raymond Albums after Beistle sold the rights to Wayte Raymond. They had covers very similar to the Bigelow album covers but were larger, the size of the large Wayte Raymond Albums. David Lange says in his book that some people also used Shoestrings for the Beistle albums too if they wanted them to hold more pages than the metal rings allowed.

Mr_Spud

I did a search for “James M. Bigelow” just now and found a slightly older ad from March 1941 Hobbies magazine where the price was 65 cents instead of 70 cents like in the 1942 Numismatic Scrapbook ad I posted earlier. In both of these ads the image of the coin holder doesn’t have holes in it so they might not have come out with the Covers yet and they might have only had the boards and not the shoestring albums yet. Heres the ad:

lilolme

Ah, so I did need to look closer. Sorry the kind of looked the same to me.
Thanks.

Mr_Spud

@lilolme said:
Ah, so I did need to look closer. Sorry the kind of looked the same to me.
Thanks.

Yes, they are very similar. That’s why I ended up stumbling onto the Bigelow holders and albums, when I was searching for examples of the Beistle Album covers and pages. It’s pretty obvious that Bigelow copied the old Beistle covers.

Mr_Spud

They already existed in 1940, I just found a full page ad in the Numismatic Scrapbook. Just this one ad in the whole year, 12 monthly editions. I’ll look in the 1939 editions when I get a chance to see if they existed before 1940, and also will look through the ones between 1942 and 1951 to see if I can find out when they came out with the covers and started putting holes in them so they could go into the albums. Fun stuff 🌞

Beistle’s patent supposedly expired in 1946 so most likely that’s when Bigelow started selling the covers and boards with holes, I’m figuring. Here’s where it says the Bristle patent was supposed to expire in 46

And I went and looked in my box of Bigelow pages and I had 2 of the old ones without the binder holes. Here’s what they look like

davewesen

The pages toned some uncirculated coins very nicely after a few decades.
The only writing I have seen on them is the year of the mint set -> 1958 MINT SET
Single 5 coin year set pages came in a light green paper cover with company info on outside.

Mr_Spud

@291fifth said:
That is the first of those I have seen. I wonder how they compared price-wise with the Wayte Raymond albums of the same period? $1 per page was probably expensive by 1951 standards (see the date on one of the ads). Perhaps that is why so few seem to be around.

I looked in David Lange’s book about the Wayte Raymond prices per page, I couldn’t find any pricing from the 1950s, but in the early 40s the large size pages were going for a dollar a page and the small size pages were going for 60 cents, so the small Wayte Raymond pages were a bit cheaper than one of the Bigelow Perfect Coin Holders that didn’t yet have the holes in them. So you may be right that these may not have been as popular due to the higher price.

oreville

Wow! Your OP brought back a torrent of old time forgotten memories when I was a 12 year old coin collector back in 1965 when I wanted to switch my long enough white keds sneaker laces for the long black laces used in the used Bigelow binders I saw at a local coin show. I never followed through on my idea. They were priced at well under 50 cents each.

Shamika

Mr_Spud - That is an amazing find of a truly rare and historical item. While I collect coin boards, I do keep an eye out for important albums and yours is certainly one of them. I wish I could provide more information on Mr. Bigelow and his products, but anything I might share has already been covered by Dave Lange and his publications.

Thank you for sharing.