James Higby of Dixon, Illinois writes:

What James noticed are format changes Dansco has made to their albums over the past 58 years. These changes hint as to when the album was printed.

Dansco first started producing their brown albums in 1966. The telltale sign that you have a vintage album is the back binder listing Dansco's then-existing catalog as well as Venice, California being the printing location. There were two vintage formats. One with one column, and another with two columns.

Here is the back of my #7240 Cuba Type and #7124 U.S. Dimes. Notice the copyright year and "Venice, Calif"

When Dansco moved from Venice, CA to Los Angeles, CA around 1979, they updated the format to remove the catalog and left it mostly blank.

At some unknown date, they updated the back binder again to include the year and mintage for the coin series.

In the case of the #7171 Morgan Dollars Date set album, they updated it again but this time only on the front to include the years covered.

Given the popularity of Morgan Dollars and Dansco's move to Sumas, Washington, I would not be surprised to hear Dansco reprint #7171 but update the format to reference Sumas rather than Los Angeles.

In short, Dansco albums have changed over the years. It's an interesting glimpse into the past, but value-wise there is no premium in the market for older versions of albums. What matters most is what coin series the album covers, especially if it's a non-commonwealth foreign album i.e. Cuba, Panama, New Guinea, etc. These albums easily go for hundreds of dollars empty.