I thought I would buy 3 coin albums for my American Silver Eagle collection and see which one I liked best. Feel free to chime in with your own findings. Note that the Album Photos below are stock photos of each Album for other series. ------------------------- 1st Place: Intercept Shield This album had the best outside finish, very slick and polished. The pages turned easily. The inside the color (dark green) was, by far, the best and provided the best contrast with the bright silver coins. I could not find ANYTHING wrong with this superb album. This Silver Eagle album had 1 slot per coin year, a format i prefer -- presumably to be filled with the bullion strikes and they were printed up to year 2012. ------------------------- 2nd Place: Dansco This album was well made. The pages turned easily. However my biggest complaint was the drab brown color of the outside. And the sickly tan color of the inside. My silver coins just sort of faded away in the drab colored pages. This album also had holes for 1 coin per year for the bullion strikes, which i prefer. ------------------------- 3rd Place: Littleton I didnt like the binder rings very much. The pages often got stuck when turning the pages. The outside color and printing was very nice. However the inside color, sort of an off-white didn't provide enough contrast for silver coins. Although I did like the color of the inside pages much more than the sickly tan of the Dansco. They printed holes for the 2006-2010 W mintmark coins -- a format that some might like, but I didn't. They incorrectly printed a hole for the 2009-W coin which was never struck. When I spoke to Littleton about this misprint, they suggested I replace page 3 with a blank page (not a very elegant solution) None of the albums printed holes for the proofs, which was fine with me. ------------------------- So here is page 2 of my ASE collection in the Intercept Shield Album. Excuse the bad blurry photo below ... i took it under dim kitchen lighting with my iphone. The dark green color really makes the coins pop! The Intercept Shield is hands down my favorite coin album.
a lot of people feel that DANSCO albums are better made than the Intercept Shield, what's your opinion? I hope you will do long term storage next because I am looking for boxes to put my coins in (looking for boxes that will hold them for 5+ years)
I miss my old blue Whitman folders... yeah, back in the 50's. Gluing the coins in place, and smackin' 'em with a hammer if they were a little tight going in. Yep.. we showed those coins who was boss back in the old days..
I have most recently purchased a Dansco to house my Barber halves, which is a very big improvement to the old Whitman albums I have for other series. I know the Whitmans have improved since then. Does anyone have a preferance of the two, and for what reasons?
I not to recently bought three incept type album, made by The Coin snd Currency Institute, Inc., with Mercury Head and Roosevelt dimes in it. It was circa 1959. Some of the dimes had been in the albums fror at least 20 yrs. and were tarnishing showed a blue coloring on their rims and ever so slightly scratched by the sliding of the clear shields. The shields were also yellowing. I removed all the dimes and stapled them in 2x2's and inserted them into BCW 20 pocket pages and put them in a three ring binder. I feel this will keep them as safe and accessible as intercept albums.
I like Dansco albums for my regular sets. But, I also collect old albums and folders and sometimes even put secondary sets together in them. Guy
I am working on using Kointainers in an Intercept and getting rid of the slide. The first reamer I made wouldn't widen the hole consistently - I may have to clamp and drill.
