Can anyone identify this album? I look up the numbers and it doesn’t exist in the Whitman database. A “9000” does but not a “9000-15”. I’m stumped.
That's why I suggested transfer lettering (or, of course, Photoshop). I suspect the original album had those holes unlabeled.
OK? If it can be done once, it can be done twice, right? I can't imagine why someone would do it, but that's true of lots and lots of things that actually exist.
Whitman's Ninth Edition (1978-99) did include extension numbers for the most often printed titles of coin series that were still being minted. The example of that title in my collection is numbered 9000-12, and it does include "20th Century Indian Head Cents" at the end. I believe the extension number refers to different printing versions, the one illustrated at the message board being earlier than the one I have, so the numbers were not sequential. The company didn't seem to know what it should do with the remaining openings for folders having no concluding date, so it labeled the leftover openings for other cents that didn't belong there. I have a folder for Jefferson Nickels Starting 1962 that has openings on the last page printed for Liberty Nickels 1900-12. The coin hobby division of Western Publishing was in free fall during the 1980s, and Western Publishing ultimately closed the Racine plant in 1996 and sold off the Whitman coin products division. The Ninth Edition includes all manner of wacky folders that appear to have been designed by persons having no real knowledge of the hobby, since all of the numismatists on its staff had quit by then or been let go. I did catalog this edition for my book but then ultimately cut off with the Eighth Edition. The missing edition could make for an interesting article someday.
I should add that the reason for including Indian Head Cents and Liberty Head Nickels within other folders is perhaps due to Whitman's reluctance to re-issue folders for earlier series, which were poor sellers at the time. The 1980s-90s was a time of severe cost-cutting measures at Whitman, and this may have been viewed as a way to fend off requests to produce those titles. With no numismatists on its staff after the early 1980s, Whitman probably lost an understanding of its customers.
I like how it skips from 1864 to 1900. What a wacky thing to do with a coin album. Thanks @David W. Lange
Since I was thinking "it would make absolutely no sense for Whitman to print something like that in an album", I'm going to say I was still somewhat right. Thanks for the history, @David W. Lange -- and thanks for joining us here!
Yes, never would have believed it came from the publisher that way. Learn something new all the time.