I've been getting around to sort what I have and filter out what I want to get rid of. These albums would probably be one of the last that I may get rid of. These albums look impressive especially the old Dansco classic albums. You'll find it hard to believe that they were manufactured 50 years ago and still hold up better than some of the cheap stuff that are made these days. In fact, I believe one Japanese company had been inspired to make a similar album which is shown below. These are better than the Chinese albums that I have, featuring China and Taiwan. I had trouble scanning the Taiwanese coin album as the plastic faded into dark yellow and I had to adjust the color manually. On top of that, the coins were rattling - not one I would recommend. Cover is cheap vinyl like material. I'm not a big fan of the one side display album - shown with the Papua New Guinea coins. It's a real shame that such albums are just nearly impossible to obtain these days as well as having less choice when it comes to world coin albums. I've been designing some digital albums and if they ever go ahead, this is what they will look like. http://issuu.com/gxseries I have just attached a few resized scans of the albums. I still have to go through fixing the scans up. This will take some time. Please also feel free to post some of your coin albums!
They're interesting to see. Thanks for posting them. I have encountered some old folders in Japan before. I've never been a fan of folders so much and gave up on Dansco and Whitman albums long ago. I find often they don't update frequently enough for moderns and the quality has diminished over the years in look and feel as well. How about the materials in these older folders? Vinyl and polymer plastics not so good for the coins, no?
Thanks spirityoda and krispy. Krispy - the older Dansco albums are actually very well built especially this being made 50 years ago. I can see why people are willing to fork up to a hundred dollars for one for good reasons. This was the days when quality goods were manufactured in the US. I think one don't have to be an American to appreciate good quality product like this. I might sound a bit over the top but will let others vouch for the quality. As to describe what the old albums were made of - layered paper, acetate (similar material used for transparency), aluminum for the holder and some cloth like material for the cover. Some of the older silver coins did tone quite nicely in them. On the other hand with the inferior Chinese albums, the concept is similar. They would use layered paper which is then drilled and covered with PVC. This would have been a better product with Dansco with a leather like texture paper. In between the PVC and the cardboard, cheap acetate is placed so that the coins would avoid direct contact with PVC. Thankfully these are really cheap coins so I'm not too concerned if they end up with some horrible disease. However I have to replace the acetate - the Chinese ones just used some really cheap ones. Might just pickup a few sheets of acetate from a stationary store and cut them to size. I've seen some coin albums made for Russia, Kazakhstan, Jordon, Israel, Mexico etc. Some of them are quite new and look impressive. Meanwhile I'll just plod along doing my own digital album and dream on...
We all know to avoid PVC, but I'm a bit worried about acetate as well. It can degrade to produce acetic acid, and I see cautions against relying on it.
Jeff, thank you for the link. I wasn't aware of it and am glad that you did let me know. I'll see if I can source some mylar sheet. Still have to get a guillotine board and cut them to shape. Probably a project down the road after I sort everything out.
Well now I feel stupid, I bought some Japanese coins recently in Dansco pages like the ones you have, but removed the coins and put he pages in the trash.
If you have access to a better art supply shop that sells fine art papers you can probably get a variety of mylar thicknesses to choose from, in sheet form as opposed to a huge roll, and the cutting mat at the same shop. Alternatively, if there is a university campus with an art program, they may have such goods in the campus store, or you can find these items online in art supply companies. Doh! Sometimes when I have something like that, even if I separate the coin from a former holder, I'll stow the old holder (even one that's not good for the coins to be around) out of the way somewhere, at least for a while. Just in case.
I've been watching a listing since just prior to this thread starting that seems kind of interesting but also rather high, and to tell the truth I'm not really into these kind of Japanese coins. I prefer Meiji silver and gold pieces. It's a 1950s folder. Seller is US based. Any thoughts on this folder / set? It's missing a couple of coins. (171533791427)
I got around to working out three albums. Took me a bit longer than I hoped. Here's the three. New Guinea (1935 - 1945): http://issuu.com/gxseries/docs/new_guinea China (1955 - 1992): http://issuu.com/gxseries/docs/china_fen Taiwan (1949 - 1981): http://issuu.com/gxseries/docs/taiwan_album Hope you enjoy!
A very decent presentation, gx! Looks like you used the actual pages from the physical albums, right? Were these photographed or scanned?
Thanks everyone. Krispy - I saw the link at ebay. They actually come in two album if I am not mistaken. I do not own them but my first impression is that some of the coins were actually glued to the albums. This is based on some photos that I have seen and where the coins have fallen off, there was some stains on them which seem to suggest that they were either glued or taped. I would avoid them and insist on getting the Dansco Japan album. They do appear perhaps once a year for sale. Mlov43 - these albums were scanned. Took a bit of time to rotate the images and crop them. Once you make them into pdf, issuu will take over from there. I just realized that there is a limit of 25 pdf that you can upload on the free version. That said, it's more than enough for me to do what I want.
Hi everyone, just got around to finish Japan Dansco type set album. http://issuu.com/gxseries/docs/japan_dansco_type_set_1870 Hope you enjoy!
There you go, gx! I think this is the first time I've had a good look inside that Dansco Japan album. It looks like it was made around the early 1970s(?) since the last coin-hole is dated 1970. Yeah, I can see why people would want this particular album. Why is Dansco so dunderheaded? They can't make it again? I think this version of a physical album is the nicest photo-based presentation of a physical coin album on the internet that I've seen. It would be helped a great deal if the resolution was sharper so that you could really zoom in on the coins. With the current state of imaging, perhaps that's too much to ask, or too expensive to do. Thanks for sharing this! Cheers.
+1 It's do-able, but perhaps not all users skills and abilities are up to the task of preparing files. Flatbed scanning is still pretty limited for coins. If each coin was photographed rather than scanned, and an empty Dansco page scanned as a template for placing cropped images of the coins into the holes, creating a file from each coin image into the album page, to look like coins imaged in a page, the effect and resolution to zoom and inspect might be significantly improved. It would be more labor intensive and is only a bit more advanced of a task to accomplish. +1
