Self-Adhesives & Mnh

If you hinge one of the new self-adhesive stamps into an album, is it still considered MNH, since the hinge isn't actually on the stamp itself? Or is it only MNH if it's placed in a mount?

The question above was posed to me by my 8 year old, right after he asked, "What's more powerful, a bazooka or a machine gun?" I'm still trying to get an answer on that one!

Thank you in advance!

Wait 5 more minutes until he forgets this one and asks an easier question

Bazooka but 50caliber is a up there . I have vertical imper coils and it dawned on me that since the are self adhesive there technically no way of doing a block of 4 on cover only varying length strips. I would say there is no possibility of mint and hinged going together there either Mint with original backing or hinged with no gum . But if hinged with backing then I guess it would be mint hinged. Throw the chicken and the egg question back at him and avoid the subject.

I asked a similar question on another thread months ago and never did get a response, so I'll be interested in what others may have to say about it, too. Here's what I previously posted:



I suspect true purists would say don't hinge anything; but let's face it, these modern issues aren't going to be worth much more than face value, if that, in the future, due to the massive quantities that get printed, so it really doesn't matter that much. Besides, no one really knows how decades of storage is going to affect self adhesive stamps anyway. As we end a lot of our threads here, it comes down to the fact that it is your stamp collection, so do what pleases you.

The Scott Specialized catalog doesn't address this issue, stating only that "Hinged unused stamps from No. 772 to the present are worth considerably less than the values given for unused stamps, which are for never hinged examples."

The terms never hinged, lightly hinged, and hinge mark or remnant are all described in the Illustrated Gum Chart relative to the degree of disturbance of the original gum -- following that construct, a hinge on the backing paper of a self-adhesive would seemingly leave the gum free from any disturbance, fitting the never hinged definition.

However, in describing never-hinged plate blocks, Scott says "values given for never-hinged plate blocks are for blocks in which all stamps have original gum that has never been hinged and has no disturbances, and all selvage, whether gummed or ungummed, has never been hinged."

To answer spanishmoss' original question, it appears we first need to answer the question: Is the backing paper on self-adhesives going to be considered the same as selvage in issues with water-soluble gum?

As wt1 has suggested, the "purist" will probably consider backing paper in the same manner as Scott has selvage when categorizing never-hinged self-adhesives; however, in terms of valuation, it likely will have minimal impact.

All of this makes me glad I stopped actively collecting mint U.S. issues in the mid-80s!

Not an issue for me, I don't collect the new labels.

I guess that about sums it all up! Thank you all so much for your thoughts. They are always most appreciated!!

I'd say diplomacy is more powerful than bazooka and machine guns

If you hinge the backing paper of the S/A stamp to your album, the item is then Mint Hinged.

I see no reason to think otherwise.

So I wouldn't do it

So backing paper is now collectible? The basis for the original post is that the backing paper is NOT the stamp and ultimately to hinge it would not affect any part of the stamp and thus should not have any negative impact on its value.

We could even take this a step further and ask how one collects a stamp on its backing paper. Do you tear them apart immediately at the die cut perforations? Or do you tear them apart so as to have a margin on all sides? Or do you cut them apart (as opposed to tearing them apart)?

The best solution would probably be to put self adhesive stamps in stockbooks or pages and then the problem goes away. At least it will go away for as long as the stamp remains affixed to the backing paper. As mentioned in other threads, since no one really knows what the long term effects of storing today's self-adhesive stamps will be and/or how long they will remain on their backing paper until the adhesive starts to disintegrate, it's yet another one of those questions that have as many answers as there are collectors.

Only time will tell.

I purchased a roll of Self-Adhesive stamps in 1999 and now they are coming off the backing paper.
And they look like Mint no gum !

I think that current U.S. stamps have co-dependent relationships with their backing papers...you could collect mint backing paper without the stamp, but it will be difficult to collect mint stamps without the backing paper. So they must be part of the equation, no?

To further complicate things, some recent U.S. stamps have notes on the backing paper, relating to the stamps. If anyone is collecting these current U.S. issues fifty years from now, they'll want the notes on the backing paper. And they probably won't want hinge marks.

I agree, only time will tell...

My 2d, as a non-collector of them.

We also now have backing paper that has notes on only one stamp and other issues that have a whole paragraph of data on the backing paper that spans all of the stamps, so it "requires" you to retain the whole pane, at least if you want to get the entire paragraph of data that was originally printed on it.

I would also comment about Londonbus1's self adhesive coils from 1999 that have now started to come off its backing paper. I'm not sure if those might be from US or other countries but it prompts me to note one experience I recently had. I bought a coil of 100 of the new 20 cent George Washington Stamps at the post office, expressly for the purpose of pulling out plate number strips for my collection and my intention was to use the remainders as postage. In order to get the plate number strips, I pulled off a couple of self adhesive stamps next to where I wanted to collect the strip and put them on backing paper at the beginning of the roll (where I had already used some stamps for postage). To my surprise, the stamps wouldn't stick to that backing paper for any length of time (i.e. more than a day or two), even though it was the same backing paper for the same issue of stamps. Once you pull a stamp off of its backing paper it apparently loses its adhesion qualities to the backing paper and now will only stick to envelopes (at least for awhile).

I wonder what the long term effects of self adhesive stamps will be for cover collectors? Will they eventually fall off the covers when the adhesive starts to fail in 10, 20 or even 30 years time?

I take the meaning of the term "mint" as meaning "as was produced by the printer", which means, for a peel&stick, with backing paper and no hinge. Anything else cannot be "mint".

The fact that some early peel&stick stamps are already degrading is a good reason for not collecting them in "mint" condition as they will not stay that way for long. Maybe it would be better for long term storage to put them through the solvent treatment first and collect them as "mint no-gum"; at least that way they might last longer.

As far as I can see "mint" peel&stick are only good for postage, philatelically are they really much better than kid's stickers? At least once they are used, they will have some postal history.

:)

Very true. Which leads to the next question. If the modern self-stick stamps are not typically going to be worth anything beyond the value of postage, why waste the money on expensive stamp mounts when a hinge will do? Who cares if it is not a "mint" stamp, if there is no philatelic value in retaining it as a "mint" stamp.

It comes back to the same conclusion. It's your collection, so do with it as you want. The only one to please is yourself.