Will Wittman Folders Hurt Coins?

Hi, I disagree on this one. The whitman folders for lack of a better word are crap. I have had many different sets on these folders and unless you are the type to want to fill it up all in one day then set it aside and never touch it again, they aren't very well lasting. The creases eventually weaken. The coins can eventually just fall out. The toning that happens fairly quickly sucks. Also, with a whitman folder say goodbye to ever being able to see the other side of your coins.

$20 every time you want a new set (to pay for a dansco) may seem pricey but in the long run you are paying for protection for coins that you wouldnt be collecting if you didn't care about coins.
roosevelts may not be the most valuable coins now, but in the long term (100+ years) they could very well be worth something.

choice is yours but I have transferred all my sets into nice unisafe books (canadian version of dansco) or into 2x2's in a binder and tossed the whitmans out.

I agree with Malissadawn, since I started working at the coin shop I have seen what these albums can do to coins , especially Lincolns. The Lincolns invariably turn from red to brown in these, it may take a long time or a short time depending on the other environmental variables (temp., humidity, chemicals in the air). I would spend the extra on Intercept Shield albums or Dansco's, they are much more protective of the contents. I have some nicely toned AU/MS Mercury dimes from a Whitman album- they are nicely toned on the obverse but have black gunky spotty reverses where they were in contact with the paper.

They can be used to impart toning , but I would only use MS silver or copper nickel coins , the circs just seem to tone very dull browns and yellows in the Whitmans, but the MS coins can look very nice after awhile.

I want to know who thought it would be a good idea to press all your coins into a hole anyway ? I use 2x2's and three hole binder pages for all of my raw coins, you can put them in any order you want...label them how you want...move them around much easier... and I could fill a 3 dollar binder with 100 2x2's for 3.50 , and 5 twenty pocket pages for about 3 bucks...so a ten dollar album. I have had some coins in these for twenty years or better ( a couple years in an attic too ) with no ill effects whatsoever, I like them.

I think you guys are missing the point. He needs a cheap, non-Whitman folder to put his Roosevelt dime collection in.

I'm going to go ahead and suggest a Harris folder for your collecting needs. It's the same tri-fold folder as the Whitman one, but it's not made of terrible material. Go with that one, I use them for all of my pulled-from-circulation coins.

i use the Whitman folder with the plastic slides what do you guys think about that?

I started with the Whitman folders, but after about few years of collecting, I started moving everything to Dansco albums. I keep everything in Dansco, even for the modern circulated coins, because I assign a lot of value to the sentiment of having collected these "cheap moderns" for the last 30 years.

If you want something better than the folders, but cheaper than Dansco, then you cannot beat the 2x2 and vinyl page route. They are rather inexpensive, especially in bulk, and you can get any cheap 3-ring binder to put the pages in. This should only cost a few dollars more than any folders would. The ability to "customize" your albums is a plus.

I do have some 2x2 albums myself, but they are the smaller 12 pocket pages that fit into the Dansco binders.

Yeah, the Whitman Classic Albums most certainly do NOT hold up as well as the Dansco. The Whitman ones deteriorate more rapidly.

Yeah, like springcypress said, try finding some used albums from your local coin shop(s) and/or ebay...I've picked up used Dansco's from my local coin shop for anywhere between $5-$12, depending on condition.