Here is an expensive lesson that one of my customers learned. It illustrates a point that I made some time ago.

This collector is retiring from stamp collecting due to failing health. He sent his collection to me for review. It contained a few better/early US items, but much of the collection was post-1935 material.

He mounted the collection using beautiful blue colored Scott Platinum series hingeless albums. These are extremely nice albums that originally cost about $70 each. He had 5 albums. The albums are worth nothing. Why?

Scott stopped producing these hingeless albums in 2005. Why? I suspect it was poor sales compared to competitors that also offered hingeless albums. I can’t give these albums away. There is no way to bring these albums up to date with the current issues. It’s a dead end set of albums.

Used albums don’t sell well anyway. Albums in extraordinarily good shape are worth a few dollars. Many collectors want their own albums though. In this case, the collector spent a lot of money on premium albums, only to find that the manufacturer discontinued them. Ouch!

Buy the albums you want to use because you like them. Don’t buy albums with the thought that they will increase the value of your collection. They do not. Unfortunately, it is too late for this collector.