To Hinge Or Not Hinge

A fairly pertinent post Rohumpy,
there is just one other consideration,
a nice stamp, decently hinged may have an album life
of say 50 years. That same stamp with a journey from
packet to packet may not survive.
Certainly a mount is the highest order for preservation,
but for the masses of stamps that fill a mediocre interest
with part time collectors stored in less than favourable conditions,
the hinged stamp in a well protected album, does have a role to play.

That .20c stamp that you hinge to be economical, may be worth a considerable amount in 25 to 50 years when they are passed on to son, daughter, or grandkids.

I use mounts for all of my mint and most of my used stamps. I do continue to hinge used stamps in my general WW albums.

I agree that at least some preservation will have been practiced with hinging over "glassine hopping" and I also agree with 'lockemup' that with a keen eye the more potentially valuable ones should be mounted.

True Fred, those Dennisons are tasty. As I said, I don't use them anymore, but I have an old pack left over, and I keep them in a bowl on my desk, and I snack on then all day long.

if the stamp is around 5-10 cents I use "removable tape" it works good for me (some people will differ)

Agree, Rod. I had rather have a stamp hinged into a protected album than tossed into a plastic box or glassines and let them rattle around in a box. THere is no easy answer.

I'd like to comment one more time on this subject.

First, a history lesson on one of our most prized commemorative sets ..





I'd like to remind everyone that postal services globally have seen a huge downturn in business (obviously due to electronic communication) over the past 15 years. In addition to this downturn, post offices are using more and more to bar-coded labels, thus further reducing the number of postage stamps printed.

What's the average run size on US commemoratives, lately?

Keeping this in mind, do you honestly believe that those modern stamps you are hinging today are not worth the time and effort to preserve?

Barring some great electronic catastrophe that ends the Internet forever, we will never see stamps issued in the same numbers as they were pre WWII.

I'm not preserving stamps for myself. I'm preserving them for future generations ...

Brian

To be honest, yes, I don't think most modern stamps are worth the effort to stick on a letter, the USPS has been raping collectors for decades, releasing an absurd number of stamps per year, hoping to make money off of completists. That's fine, I stopped playing their game in 1993, I no longer collect new issues and never will again.

I'm also not collecting for future generations, I couldn't care less if my kids decide to burn my various collections after I'm dead, I'll be dead, why will I care?

However, I am collecting, I am not simply accumulating. As such, my point in collecting is to get a complete set of whatever I happen to be buying, kept in pristine condition as much as humanly possible. Not that there's anything wrong with doing it another way, this is simply how I choose to collect. As such, I do not hinge, as hinging changes the condition of the stamp, whether mint or used. Cost is not an issue, hence I use the best quality mounts I can in pursuit of my enjoyment of my hobby.

Other people's mileage may vary.

This topic started out with a simple question of to hinge ot not to hinge and the response far exceeded my expectations and provided answers that are varied from one end to the other of the scale.

Me, I use Scott strip mounts of various sizes and cut them to length. I started using mounts due primarily because early in my hobby I purchased a Harris U.S. Classic album that had all the stamps removed and only the mounts were left. My 1st album was a Liberty album and I used hinges. I liked the look of the Harris album much more than the Liberty and transferred my humble collection over to the Harris. MNH or a used space filler, it gets put inside a mount. To me, this make the collection as a whole look better and I have never had an issue with a stamp falling out of a mount. I did have issues with hinges, for what ever reasons. In closing, it really doesn't make much difference what you use as long as the collector is happy with the way his or her stamps are mounted. Even not mounting your stamps, putting them in stock pages and leaving them there is OK. Its your collection, do it your way.

Art

That's life, that's what all the people say.
You're mounting high in April,
Hinging down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune,
When I'm back on top, back on top in June.

I said that's life, and as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks,
Stamping with Mint Unhinged
But I don't let it, let it get me down,
'Cause this fine ol' world it keeps spinning around

I've seen a soaker, a sticker, a cindy, a cover,
A President and a King.
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself, flat on my face,
I pick my tongs up, and get back in the race.

That's life......... (refrain)

I realize this response is very dependent upon what you collect, how much you collect, and how you wish to display your stamps (i.e. in an album or stockbook) but to apply some simple math:

If you figure you can comfortably put perhaps 4 or 6 stamps in a row in a quality stockbook that has 6 rows per page and 20 pages, a $20 or $25 investment in a stockbook (or pages and a binder, if you prefer) will store between 480 and 720 stamps.

On the other hand, the most economical stamp mounts would cost at least 5 cents apiece. You would then have to buy between $24 and $36 in stamp mounts to mount the same number of stamps in an album ... and that doesn't include the cost of the empty album. So the stockbook method can actually be cheaper and would give you the flexibility to move your stamps around at will.

Of course none of these methods are as cheap as the lowly stamp hinge ... but admittedly they don't protect the stamp in the same way.

Rileysan..I think we have uncovered another Sinatra fan




Lowly?....lowly! The Hinge Rules, Sir!

Yes I mounted James 100 Cuba this morning,
took about an hour and a half,
Cost?......$1

Looks great, lovely tactile feel to the pages.My Cuba collection just tipped over the 1000.

That's quite a group of answers. I guess I will just do it MY WAY. choose the ones I want mounted or hinged.