Numismatists Of Wisconsin
 

Collecting Vintage Coin Albums, Part III

By Donald Kocken #2133

Looking for a different aspect in the numismatic field of collecting? In my initial introduction (NOW NEWS Fall 2017), I talked about the pride of filling my coin sets and never gave much thought on how to display or store them. In Part I of this series (NOW NEWS Winter 2017), I talked about vintage coin boards. This article is about coin albums. Coin Albums come in many different sizes and colors, some were made from heavy duty cardboard stock in steel ring binders with add-on pages and some were made in book form with portholes for each coin and some had transparent plastic sliding panels, so that you can see both sides of the coin. There are so many publishers that make coin albums that I will cover only a select few for the scope of this article.

THE NATIONAL COIN ALBUM

1931-1963 was published by Wayte Raymond. The Binders were brown in color and have two steel rings attached to a steel binding post mounted to the inside spine. The binders came in two sizes. The Large Size Binders are 8 3/4 inches by 14 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches and The Small Size Binders are 9 1/8 inches by 6 7/8 inches by 1 1/2 inches. Sometimes they came with a slip case to hold the binders. The Small Size Binders are more common. There are National Coin Binder imitators out there, because there was a shortage of the originals being produced, however there were lots of pages produced, so the imitators filled the void.

Westward Travel Yields Little-Publicized Numismatic Attraction

National Coin Album Large size

The pages are made of tan cardstock with brown tape running around the perimeter and on all sides. Some of the earlier issue have staples to hold them together, which are very hard to find without being rusty. Each page has portholes for the different sizes of coins and have two sliding panels of transparent plastic in each row of coins, so you can see the obverse and the reverse of the coin. I've noticed that four pages within each binder works very well with the steel rings and that five or more pages will cause damage to the holes in each page for long term.

Westward Travel Yields Little-Publicized Numismatic Attraction

National Coin Album Small size

The Large Size Binders have about 110 different pages available for different denominations. The Small Size Binders have about 480 different pages. There is a possibility of more to exist in each series. In my collection the most common are the Cents, Nickels, Quarters and Commemorative. The harder ones to find are the pages with coins dated in the 1800's. As you can see, this is a real challenge to put a complete set of the pages together with enough binders. What to watch for is some of the pages you pick up may not have all the sliding panels, so whenever you throw away a damaged page, pull the sliding panels out to keep for future use. I have an envelope for each size of sliding panels in each series, so when I need one that has one missing, I’ve got a replacement handy. There is a book written by David W. Lange on the subject called Coin Collecting Albums, Volume One on The National Coin Album and Related Products.

Westward Travel Yields Little-Publicized Numismatic Attraction

The Popular Album

THE POPULAR ALBUM

1941-1950’s was published by Wayte Raymond, for a cheaper product made of green cardstock with one plastic sliding panel to cover the portholes. The problem with this album is that you can only see one side of the coin. The earlier albums had brown binding tape and the later albums had gray binding tape, then at the end of their production run, the albums had green binder tape. On the front cover it has a line drawing of the coin type. The back cover is imprinted; THE POPULAR ALBUM produced by Wayte RaymondInc. There are 24 different albums produced, with a possibility of more to exist.

THE AMERICAN COIN ALBUM

1946-1963, was published by M. Meghrig & Sons. They produced binders and pages, almost the same as Wayte Raymond National Coin Album in size and almost the same color. Some of the binders have a spring loaded steel ring for the pages and the only way to identify the difference between the two is the name on the binders and each page has a Meghrig numbering system that is on the back bottom instead of on top. It lists the same numbers that Wayte Raymond uses but they added the numeral 1 in front the Meghrig logo. There are many different types of binders and pages with a logo stating Meghrig and The American Coin Album.

Westward Travel Yields Little-Publicized Numismatic Attraction

American Coin Album Large size

Westward Travel Yields Little-Publicized Numismatic Attraction

American Coin Album Large size

The Large Size Binders have about 30 different pages. The Small Size Binders have about 190 different pages. There is a possibility of more to exist in each series.

Occasionally, I find the pages and binders of Meghrig and The National Coin Albums mixed together to form an Album. In my opinion, collecting Meghrig Albums and pages are harder to come by versus The National Coin Albums. The pages for early denominations present quite a challenge to find.

THE GREEN BOOK

Westward Travel Yields Little-Publicized Numismatic Attraction

1946-1963(?) was published by Meghrig & Sons. The Albums are nameless and green in color. On the back cover, it has the letter G followed by a volume number with the Meghrig Trade Mark. Later on they were called the Green Book. The size of the Album is 5 1/2 inches by 8 inches. The front cover has a large dark green picture of the coin with black lettering for that series. The construction, with the covers doubling as coin pages made with either two or four pages, consists of thick cardboard and has black binder tape to hold the pages together. There are five Large Albums, measuring 9 1/4 inches by 12 3/4 inches with two for U.S. Type Collection and three for World Coins. A complete set is about 70 Albums with a possibility of more to exist and very hard to find in good shape because the binder tape tears rather easily.

The Album for 20th century COINS of the WORLD called the GREEN BOOK was a larger version published by Meghrig & Sons measuring 9 3/8 inches by 12 7/8 inches of green cardstock with two large world drawings in black on the front cover. The binder tape on the spine is made of black fabric cloth. The pages and inside cover are green and the portholes have a plastic transparent slide in each row that is easily removed for insertion of coins and you see only one side of coin. The Albums come in two types, One being with the nations name in alphabetical order below each porthole and the other Album with no names at all. At that time period each Album sold for $3.50.

Westward Travel Yields Little-Publicized Numismatic Attraction

Westward Travel Yields Little-Publicized Numismatic Attraction

MERIT COIN HOLDER

1958 only? Was published by Meghrig & Sons. The Merit Catalog was 7 3/4 inches wide by 5 1/4 high made of thick cardstock looking like leather in a dark green color with a picture of the coin with silver lettering. There are four pages in each holder that are held together by thick black tape and the pages are also dark green with coin slot identified. You can only see one side of the coin. To have a complete set is 25 Albums with a possibility of more to exist.

Westward Travel Yields Little-Publicized Numismatic Attraction

PART IV of this series of articles will continue in the Summer Issue of NOW NEWS with more vintage coin albums. Followed by PART V in the Fall issue, covering vintage coin folders… STAY TUNED!!




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