Anyone Use Air-Tite Capsules. Looking For Suggestions.

That seems more like a positive to me. I nearly take off my fingernail and destroy the capsule every time I have to pry open an Air-Tite.

Thanks for the links. Your suggestion doesn't seem like a bad idea but I like the fact of my coin being in an air tight holder. Unless I miss read, those quardrums aren't air tight.

This is what I love so much about CC. I hear about things that I have never heard about from anywhere else before! Regarding these Book of Silver albums. I couldn't find any thing except for quarters. Do they make albums for anything else or are you saying that the Lincoln cents fit into these quarter slots and all of the imprinting would have to be removed?

Regarding those Lighthouse pages that hold the capsules, do these pages hold the Air-tites exactly the same size? I have seen these capsules and if I am correct they are a little thinner and flexible. I would hate to have to remove the Air-tites just to use these capsules in these Lighthouse pages.

Thank you Silver Handle for that information. I have also contacted the Book of Silver website and asked them to consider expanding their product line to include other denominations. I don't know if they have a patent on this product but I can tell you that Air-tite should have already made something like this. It is much more affordable then Air-tite's product and IMO it looks much better. I hope Book of Silver gets the message. I think they could do quite well as there are many people in need of an affordable alternative.

Actually, maybe the pages in the photo above would not be an issue rubbing against each other. When I first looked at them, I thought that the Air-tites had a plastic film over them but I may have been mistaken. It looks as if those may be actual holes and the Air-tite just fits in that space?

I never heard back from them. I have spent a lot of time this week looking for ideas for those of us using Air-tites. I have to say, I haven't found much. Air-tite the company, did get back to me just to confirm that yes, there album pages only hold 9 coins. I am just baffled how a company that makes such a high quality product would stop at just making the Air-tite only. I don't count their album because while it is a quality product, they are not useful. I think they are even smaller than the standard 8 1/2 x 11. I don't get why they would make them so small when they leave so much empty space on the page. The pages are velvet which makes it almost impossible to identify the coin. It's just weird, I feel like buying the company and working it from a collector point of view. Anyway, just venting a bit.

So to sum up, to display Air-tites, I am aware of only the following:

1. Lighthouse Albums: This is what I use together with vinyl pages that hold 2x2 flips. I simply use the quarter size flip and place the Air-tite inside the flip, use no staples and insert it into the vinyl pages. I think I already provided a link to what it looks like in an earlier post.

2. User tkbslc provided the photo of the Endcap pages available also from Lighthouse.us. On their page it mentions that it holds "capsules" but it didn't specifically mention Air-tites but I think tkbslc mentioned that he has personally used these and they fit but were a little loose? I think that was what he said anyway. Worth noting that I contacted Lighthouse and asked them about whether there was room below the coin to identify the type of coin but they wrote back and said there was no space in-between. Laughable that Air-tite is wasting space on their velvet pages and this company has no spacing between theirs. Crazy

3. Air-tite offers their own albums which I have already covered. Velvet pages that hold just 9 coins at the most per page.

4. This last option called Book of Silver, is only for displaying Statehood Quarters. http://www.jpscorner.com/book-of-si...-albums.html I contacted them but did not hear back in regards to them offering albums for other denominations. You would think that if they already went to the trouble of tooling these, they would proceed with other denominations as well. Perhaps they have but I could not find anything. The other suggestion was that the text on these albums could be scraped off and replaced with whatever you want. I'm not so sure that would work, especially on the outsides of the albums. However we decide to display our Air-tites, we still want them to be attractive.

These are the only means of displaying Air-tite capsules that I am aware of. If anyone knows of any others, please let us know. It is baffling to me that with what it costs collectors to protect and display their coins with these Air-tites, that there are not more options available. The only reason I can think of is that perhaps it would infringe on some patent that someone holds for the Air-tite product. This is unfortunate for us, the collector.

Do any of you happen to know which site actually owns the Air-tite business? I have been writing to http://www.air-tites.com, thinking they were the owners but today I found http://www.airtiteholders.com/ and when reading the information on their site, it seems like they actually know more about the history of the product. Not sure who the affiliate is.

Edit: In looking at the airtiteholders.com site, their pricing is actually cheaper. I am absolutely convinced now that these are the actual owners. I wonder how many people have gone to the air-tite.com site thinking they are the actual business. Even google has it wrong.

A forum member forwarded a link to this thread to our (Wizard Coin Supply) customer service staff and asked if we would review it and post our thoughts.

So, here goes.

Air-Tite capsules are by far the best selling brand of capsules in the US. They are made from hard plastic that does not scratch easily. They are sealed by snapping together, so, contrary to the name, they are not technically "air tight." But they do snap securely around the coin and protect it well.

What are the alternatives? Other brands of capsules readily available in the US include the Lighthouse capsules discussed above and Coin Safe. Coin Safe actually makes capsules for a lot of the world mints. Coin Safe and Lighthouse capsules are similar in that that they have "lips" on both halves of the capsule. Air-Tite's just have a lip on the bottom. We've found all three to work quite well but different people have their preferences. Another brand available in the US is Safe brand. They are well behind in US market share and it is harder to find their capsules (outside of their own website) but are also a good quality capsule. A new brand of capsules is Guardhouse. They are knockoffs of the Air-Tite but cheaper.

At Wizard, we stock all of the above except the Safe brand capsules and Guardhouse as they are essentially the same as other brands we do stock. All of these companies (including Safe and Guardhouse) are great companies, make good products and are good to work with.

Capsule makers take one of two strategies. Strategy one is lead by Air-Tite where they have a limited number of exterior sizes. The vast majority of coins fit in an A, T, H or I Air-Tite. They also have X, Y and Z sizes for larger coins and medals. Each letter represents and exterior size. So, all A model Air-Tites have the same exterior diameter. A size Air-Tites, however, will fit the following mm sizes inside: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19. In addition, the direct fit Air-Tites for 1/10 oz Eagles (16mm), dimes (18mm), cents (19mm), nickels (21mm), 1/4 Eagles (22mm), quarters (24mm) and small dollars (26mm) also all are A model airtites. That means Air-Tite can make one box that will display a single Air-Tite of any of these sizes. So, they can make 7 boxes and cover every size of Air-Tite to display a single example of any coin that will fit in an Air-Tite. They make the cards that hold Air-Tites because that is a very inexpensive component. The cards can various size holes to hold the various Air-Tites but the same exterior dimensions, allowing them to all go in the same box. So, to display one coin, Air-Tite needs to stock 7 different sizes of cards (with holes for A, T, H, I, X, Y and Z) and actually two boxes (one that will fit cards for A, T, H and I, and one that will fit X, Y and Z cards). They have two-hole cards for two coins. Let's just think about the four common sizes (A, T, H, I) for now. To have all the possible combinations of two coins, they need 16 cards (4x4). Because this is a manageable quantity, they have them (actually in several colors). And boxes to fit them. And they have them for all combinations of three coins, and four coins, and five coins, etc. And the boxes to fit them. While this is still a lot of SKUs, it is still manageable due to the limited number of exterior sizes.

The negative with limiting the number of exterior sizes is that something has to make up the difference between the few exteriors sizes and the many interior sizes. This is where the rings come in (in the case of ring style Air-Tites) or the little plastic baffle that is molded into the direct fit Air-Tites. In any event, this leaves the user with more capsule than technically needed. For those who bothered by this, there is the approach to capsules--make them all direct fit. This is what Lighthouse does. They have capsules for sizes in mm increments from 14 to 50 (with a few at the half mm and then one at 62mm). There is a total of 47 different sizes. Each one is a little different diameter on both the outside and the inside. There is no ring or extra space but you can imagine how this starts to complicate storage. While Air-Tite has 7 sizes to deal with, Lighthouse has 47! If you think what it takes to any two coin combination, that is 49 different holders for Air-Tite (7x7) and 2209 for Lighthouse (47x47). That's so many, that Lighthouse doesn't even try. Imagine what it takes to hold three combinations (47x47x47=103,823) or four, etc. and you can see why the card and box approach only works with a minimum of exterior sizes. Instead, Lighthouse has taken other approaches to storing and displaying capsules that work quite well with their system.

I know I've already been quite long winded (and there is a lot more to come). But, I wanted to put the above in as to really start to get your head around storage options for capsules and how they differ between the brands, it is necessary to understand each company's approach to making capsules and how that drives what they can do for accessories.

The other capsule manufactures do little or nothing to make display accessories for their products. So, it is best to really focus on Air-Tite and Lighthouse as they are the leaders in display options for the two respective approaches.

Before I move on to storage options though, there is one other brand to mention. Similar to capsules, are Kointains. These are very then plastic. My wife describes them as "contact lens." Actually, they are little thicker than that but not much! Kointains are used by a lot museums because they are so then and so clear that it doesn't look like anything is on them. Dealers put Kointains on coins and then holder and display them just as they would any other raw coin (e.g., in plastic flips, cardboard staple flips, etc.).

Capsules are often available in bulk and smaller quantities. One nice thing about buying them bulk is that they are typically unassembled. So, you don't have the extra step of opening them first (takes time and you could leave scratches behind with that pen knife you're using to open them).

Now to storage. I was thinking about the Lighthouse pages even before I clicked over and read all of the thread. These are relatively new and quite neat. The pages open on the side that has the holes to fit in the ring binder. Once open, the capsules fit in nice and snug. Close the two halves and snap together. When the page is placed in a three ring binder, there is no way for the capsules to fall out. To get them out, first the page has to be taken off of the rings and then opened. So, it is a quite secure way to hold them in place. There a thin piece of clear plastic over both sides so the coins are easily visible but the capsules don't get rub marks. These pages retail for $6.95 for a pack of two pages. We sell them at $5.89. So, for less than $3 a page this is a nice way to display capsules. While these were made for Lighthouse Capsules, it just so happens that three of the pages also fit A, T and H model Air-Tite holders. They've been quite popular sellers and Lighthouse has just introduced a page that will fit I size Air-Tites. We don't have these in stock yet but will soon.

As kind of described above, you can get an Air-Tite box that will hold virtually any combination of capsules. This is great for a set like a proof set or a birth year set that is quite defined. It doesn't work well for less defined sets that evolve over time. With each change, you'll need at least a new card and possible a new box. Air-Tite has essentially three grades of boxes. At the low end is a cardboard box, in the middle are metal boxes wrapped with either plush cloth or leatherette material and at the top are wooden boxes. The cards that fit in the boxes and hold the capsules come in a variety of colors. Between numbers hole-combinations in the cards, several colors and the four box types, a highly-customized display can be chosen.

Lighthouse, makes some boxes to single capsules as well as more elaborate trays (they call them boxes) for large numbers of capsules. The trays then fit in a variety of storage devices. We don't currently stock all of these sizes just as we don't currently stock all of the Air-Tite packing options. We do order from both regularly and can get anything they sell in stock pretty quick. But, for the Lighthouse capsules, the pages talked about above are really the new innovative item in capsule storage and display. They are compact, archival, protect the capsule, clear on both sides and inexpensive. While any three ring binder (from Walmart, Staples, etc.) will hold these pages, Lighthouse makes a really neat Grande line of binders that fit these pages and look quite impressive.

Now to some of the other questions in the thread:

We also carry the Book of Silver albums. These are really need too for their purpose and look quite nice on the book shelf. So, far they are only available for State Quarters, National Park Quarters, and the 5-ounce silver park quarters.

Lighthouse also has the Quadrum system that while not a capsule, offers some nice storage options.

If you buy the Lighthouse pages for Air-Tites, you don't buy based on the number size. For example if you have a 27mm Air-Tite, don't buy the 26/27mm Lighthouse pages. A 26mm Air-Tite is an H size Air-Tite and for that you need the page made for Lighthouse 38/39mm capsules (because the ring style Air-Tite is much larger on the outside than the direct fit Lighthouse capsule). On our sight we identify which of these pages fit which LETTER size of Air-Tite holder.

Air-Tite holders are manufactured by the people that operate the http://www.airtiteholders.com/ website. The people that operate the http://www.air-tites.com website are resellers. Like Wizard, they sell a lot of other supply brands too.

Lighthouse also makes these style pages for 2x2 and 2.5x2.5 size holders as well as slabs. So, if your collection is mixed (some 2x2, some capsules, some slabs) this could hold them all in a uniform manner.

Just to round out the capsule discussion, the capsules used by the US Mint for Proof Silver Eagles, Commemoratives, etc. are actually different from all of the above. We do buy them of the second hand market from slabbers and dealers and make them available for folks who need replacements due to scratches, broken, etc.

And finally, the most frequently asked question we get about capsules, goes something like this:

I subscribed to a [state quarter, parks quarter, silver eagle, or Presidential dollar program] offer by [insert name of mass market promoter]. The coins cost [several times market] but I got this wood and gold plated magnificent presentation case for free. Do you have capsule to fit it so that I can buy the coins elsewhere and cancel the subscription.

The answer, unfortunately, is "no." These guys are smart enough to use custom made capsules that are different enough from the options described above to keep them from effectively working. This is how they keep customers tied in to the subscription program.

Sometimes thinking about coin supply options can make one's head hurt and with capsules that certainly can apply. Hopefully, you'll find this helpful. I'll subscribe to this thread and try to check back and see if there are any more questions. But always feel free to ask our experts through our Contact Us form. If your question is a stumper, it'll get bubbled up to me and I'm awfully busy (so bear with us if it takes a little longer for those tough ones).