CAPS Coin Albums

Nice review. Thank you for including the Dansco album in the photo for size comparison.

I'll add my Two Cents here. I just got back into collecting after a roughtly 40 year hiatus. I got the basic Whitman album, the Dansco, and the CAPS just to see what I prefer. Unfortunately there are things about each type that I like best.

The Whitman is so nice and small and convenient and has the number of coins minted printed right below each coin. But only seeing one side of the coin is a major shortcoming of these books.

The Dansco allows to see both sides but the holes are much deeper than the thickness of a coin so they kind of disappear into the holes. But if you want to see both sides and you want your albums to not be too large and unweildy, then Danso seems to fit the bill. They don't print the number of coins minted below each coin but they do have a nice list inside the cover and a nice history of the coin type.

The CAPS album is fantastic in that you have each coin in its own very conveinent little circular pastic holder that you can snap out and handle and put back without ever touching the coin itself. Plus you can see both sides plus the rim of the coin. BUT, these albums are huge, many times larger than the Dansco. I wish they were a bit smaller. Also, there's no information in the books at all except the date and mint mark. I wish it had information like the other books. Also, you can remove the coins from the book but they're pretty hard to snap out, they go in with a nice "snap" but they don't come out easy. I'm afraid if I take the same coin out several times it will start to damage the pages because you have to use considerable force. Lastly, I had to buy one huge album for wheat back pennies, another huge album for indian head and a third huge one for memorial pennies. It seems they could make one book that fits all, at least all Lincoln's. Maybe they'll do that eventually. One last nice thing is you can remove a whole page (they're built like a 3-ring binder). So if they ever do make a combined book you could easily just move the pages without having to move all the coins individually.

In summary, I'm biting the bullet and opting for CAPS. The pros outweigh the cons in my opinion. But it was a hard decision because those albums are SO large they're going to take up a lot of space in my apartment and my wife is going to kill me.

I agree with your assessment on the huge-ness of CAPS albums. That's why at this time I am only storing my ASE collection in CAPS and the others are in Dansco albums (my collections that are made up of coins broken out of mint sets, essentially) and Whitman albums (from circulation, essentially).

I received an email today from the CAPS folks saying that they've renovated their web site. I need to get the 2nd installment of the ASE album, so I think I'll give it a shot!

Never mind... it's around $8 cheaper (including shipping) to order through Amazon. So I did that.

I received my CAPS album in the mail a week ago and forgot to post about it because I had to stow it and leave for a business trip. I'm back and now can get to work filling the capsules and pages.

Cirlah, the albums themselves aren't terribly expensive; about the cost of a Dansco, perhaps a few dollars more. But combine that cost with all the Air-Tites needed to encapsulate your entire collection, and then things really start to get expensive. As you said though, It should be an easy decision to protect an expensive collection with a quality display like CAPS.

My only concern is getting coins out of existing packaging and into the Air-Tites without damaging them. I blow out the capsules first with a squeeze bulb to remove any dust particles, then use nitrile or lint-free cotton gloves to carefully transfer.

Those CAPS albums are pretty big.

I just noticed something, are those three Currency albums taller than the Eisenhower and Franklin albums?