I just want to rant about Dansco and how they handle extra pages. It is absolutely ridiculous. If you need an extra U.S. cent page (19mm), then you get this one with 36 spots for your awesome cents. But if you need an empty page for anything but a U.S. Coin: You get this (18mm) with 16 holes. So for my 120 5 pfennigs, I have to buy 8 pages for a total of $58. Instead of $28 for 4 pages. Thanks a lot Dansco, I think ill buy some flips instead. Man that really grinds my gears. -greg
What they do makes perfect sense to me. They have very few buyers for those 18mm pages. But the tooling, the machinery etc cost just as much to set up and run as it does for the common pages, like cents, that they sell a gazillion of. So rather than lose money on something, which no business is going to do, they have to charge more for those 18mm pages. Of course I'd never buy any of them in the first place. But that doesn't mean that I don't understand good business.
Well maybe they would sell more if they didn't do it this way. I find it hard to believe that their tooling costs would be that much more. This is the 21st century you know, I'm sure it isn't that cost effective to put 16 holes on the page, not to mention the additional materials needed for the page itself.
Maybe you can squeeeeeeeeeeeeze them into a dime album page? As for Doug's comment, I don't think "good business" is ripping people off and being wasteful of materials. There is obviously a negligible cost of setting up the machining, but we aren't talking about the movable type printing press here. If their machines are not computer controlled I would be VERY surprised.
We are on the same page. However, this was just an example, I have 9 different sized mm I need that are all different from any U.S. ones. What I was thinking is using the 'kointains' and then sticking them in a U.S. one cent page. I just don't know if a kointain expands the diameter by 1 mm or more. I think ill make a new post asking about kointains. For those who do'nt know what 'kointains' are. These are kointains: They are pvc free 2 piece, soft plastic.
Also, before anyone says it, I am aware that the price of the kointains will negate my complaining about having to buy extra pages. But I would overall prefer to have 36 coins in the page, instead of 16.
They don't sell more because there are so few who collect those coins. And from among that small number of collectors there are even fewer who choose to use an album at all, and even fewer who choose to use a Dansco album. What I'm trying to get across is that it's all a numbers game. Whatever type of album they make, whether it be for cents, half dollars, quarters - whatever - the overhead to produce those pages is pretty much the same. And if that page is one that they sell a lot of then that overhead is absorbed and their desired profit goal is met. But when it comes to a page they only sell a few of, then they come no where near meeting that profit goal. Thus they must reduce their production costs. And the only way they have of reducing they costs is to reduce the number of holes in a page. But even that does not achieve their profit goal. So then they increase the sales price for that page. These principles are the same principles that any business follows. You asked the question of why they do this. I have explained why. But what you really want to know is why they, the company don't absorb the costs and take a loss instead of passing those costs on to you in the form of higher prices. And the answer to that is obvious - because it's not good business to do so. It is not good business to produce a product that you lose money on. Regarding your question about the Kointains - they won't fit.
Doug, I understand exactly what you are saying. My point is, I find it very hard to believe there is much 'extra cost' or 'tooling setup' to add the extra holes with today's modern manufacturing process. By your thought, it costs them less to make 2 complete pages with 16 holes, then it would to make 1 complete page with 32 holes. But anyway, the argument is mute.
This, along with most coins I collect being varying sizes, along with wishing to have freedom to display various coins on the same page, is all reasons why I use flips in pages. I get complete freedom, and if I want more on a page I simply use 1.5x1.5 versus 2x2's. Also, the back of the flips give me a ton of room to write attributions, sources, weights, and anything else I wish to record. I do see, very much, how this would be frustrating. Like I said, my own frustration with this is what led me to where I am now. Chris
Thats true Chris. I had some German mint sets that had to come out of their original packaging due to pvc. I used the 1.5x1.5 flips for all of them. I then cut down the plastic pages for the flips, and they fit perfectly in a dansco album. If it's cut right, the holes align perfectly with the dansco screws. So that is an option.
As always, Doug seems to have a personal manual for how the universe works. I wonder sometimes if you are not "the" Douglas Adams, of the "hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" series?
I guess if Dansco were smart and wanted to make some real money, they'd let you customize pages that you need. Want a page with 10 18mm holes and 5 19mm holes? No problem, just click and drag the hole sizes onto a page layout, hit submit, and pay the fees. They could charge a few dollars more for this service to offset any person actually having to put their doughnut down, get up and walk over to the die machine, but I bet a lot of people, including myself, would be more than willing to pay for the service. Now if I see them doing this in the near future and I'm not making at least a 30% cut, I'll feed all my Dansco's, minus the coins in them, to my cat! Guy
Great idea, but items like this in my experience are on a large master die, so any change whatsoever would entail creating an entire new die to punch them. Unless they have a process that only punches a hole at once, I guess. The procesdures like this I have seen is the entire page in punched at once with a master die already laid out for numbers of punches, spacing, etc. Chris
I don't know how they're made. I do know my neighbor had a laser die machine, which oddly doesn't actually use dies as it's laser, that can cut holes in anything from steel to cardboard, so I'm sure it's possible for relatively little cost. Guy
I believe they already do something like that - at least I think it was dansco. It might have been another album maker. The only problem with it was that you had to order so many of them before they would commit. I seem to recall a thread on here when someone was trying to get enough people to do something like that. It never hurts to contact them and ask them if they would make a 36 hole 18mm sheet. You might even want to try whitman and intercept. The worst they can do is say no.
I think the OP was objecting to have to pay more, for additions pages, because of fewer holes per page. Having to pay more for custom pages or paying more for minimum quantities, doesn't address his objection.
Thats the same thing I was thinging about a few months back when I was trying to figure out how I was going to display my unslabed coins. I thing we should all get together and write and sign a letter to them about a custom type dansco album. I thing its worth a try.
Doug is correct on this. Why would any company pay any tooling cost to start production on something few would buy? The cost of adding a new item to production is also a major factor. Dansco makes what they can make money on.
