Mounts Gone Bad

Here is an example of one of the pages of a mostly complete 1940's - 80's US plate block collection mounted in Minkus albums. I would estimate 75% of the blocks are stained by the adhesive strip of the "lifetime of sparkling beauty and protection!" of Crystal Mount that was used in these albums. The person who had me look at these was in denial and would not believe that his fathers life long collection was for the most part worthless. But the mounts did protect the gum from having the horrible stigma of being eeeeekk!! hinged.I guess he could flip these over and show off the back side.

There have been posts about this and I have warned about this. Some have claimed Crystal Mounts are no problem. I have seen similar and am happy to see you have posted an example. So the stains actually went through to the stamps.

On the bright side, they can still be used as postage, though it takes a lot of them to mail anything anymore.

There were some other clear plastic mounts with gold trim that were just as bad. Still, you could put together a nice selection of mint plate# singles (in some cases). Then sell the rest as postage. Probably get 50-70% of face.

I have to say that I'm on the other side of the fence.

I have a Harris Citation and Harris Liberty album. Together there are hundreds of stamps mounted in Crystal Mounts. The last stamps were put in the albums in 1975.

I have never seen anything wrong with any of my stamps. Although I am much more vigilant now.

I must also say that the albums have been sitting in a first floor bedroom closet for the past 35 years.

If I were to see pictures like those the OP has posted, I can't help but wonder if those albums didn't spend some of their past life in a basement or in a garage.

the biggest killer of collections is humidity, plain and simple.

makes me sick to my stomach, and there not even mine...The thought of breaking up mint blocks to salvage 2 of the 4 and use the others for postage.

but I think Smauggie has the best answer so far.

I will add a little to this, the staining to the stamps is not as dramatic as the album pages, the stain is very pronounced though. As I stated not all of the blocks are tainted, some more than others. My best guess is that these were mounted some time in the mid 60's to 70's.Just a guess though, the photos of the remaining mounts show the different phases of deterioration. The upper "self stik" mounts show heavy browning, the crystal mounts are all showing different shades of yellowing and browning.I do not know how these were stored over the last 25 years or so. So here are examples of used on pages with stamps and unused and still in the original packages.

Yikes - that picture gave me the shivers! Thank goodness technology has (supposedly) given us lifetime mounts now.