Stamp Collecting Tools And Supplies

What is a good working surface to use when organizing and mounting loose stamps? Seems to me a velvet jewelry tray might be a good choice to protect the stamp condition. Any thoughts of what people use as sort of a "work bench" so to speak?

I use my desk WHEN it isn't too cluttered. Or I use the dining room table.

But both these options mean I can't leave lots of things laying out. There are always a few stamps, glassines, and a pair of tongs on my desk, but as a general rule, I have to tidy up after each session.

Kirk

At my house its any flat surface I can see and that includes the floor at times. Actually started switching alot from white page stock books to black and there are about 10 albums on the floor underneath my coffee table. Regardless of your surface be sure not to accidently turn on ceiling fan as this causes the 52 pick up rule. Nothing worse than having a bunch of sorted piles and then poof there mixed on the floor. I also have 2 birds that purposely hover and flap when I'm stamping just to pee me off.

I tend to use the inside cover of my album or the page of a stockbook. Both are black and make excellent surfaces for viewing perfs. Other than that, like the others, it's whatever surface is empty or can be emptied fastest.

At the moment, it seems to be *every* surface in the house and the more I try to "just get {some sorting / soaking / classifying job} done and that'll clean some of it up", the more spread out it all gets. We can barely cook in the kitchen right now.

I have been using my formal dining room table to sort stamps and have had piles of precancels for San Francisco laid out for the last two weeks. Well after today I learned that I too can not afford to leave my stamps spread out on the dining table that I co-opted as my work bench. We very rarely use our dining room table, but today for some reason while I was at work my wife had company over and they decided to have some tea and snacks at the very table that I co-opted as my work bench for stamp sorting. Well needless to say I came home from work and happened to notice that things looked "different" where I had my stamps laid out and sorted. My loving wife apparently cleared off the dining table in my absence and attempted to put everything back just right, but obviously had a difficult time. I had piles mixed together and unbeknownst to her I had a drying book full of stamps and she must have picked it up with a loose grip because I had stamps dumped and scattered all over the table afterwards.

After this instance I now have to clean up after I'm done each night as well. Lesson learned on my part. Lol.

I wonder if stamp-collecting has ever been mentioned as a cause of divorce?

I live alone so my stamps are likely to be anywhere and usually are. But one thing I have found is, that no matter how super careful you are in cleaning up an area, one stamp is always left behind...it must have something to do with quantum physics, I reckon!

Something to do with quantum mechanics, perhaps harmonic oscillation . . .

Hello mrazz, welcome!




I think I would not choose a velvet surface. The stamps may want to catch on the velvet and you may have possible damage happening to the stamps. Older, used stamps would be prone to this especially I think.

A very important tool is stamp tongs (tweezers with rounded ends so as not to poke through stamps). Different types are available and there are a few threads / topics on here SCF about them. Use the Search button.

To store stamps and display them you can use the plastic pages brand name Vario or Hagner, or plastic mounts with black or clear backs and clear fronts. these can be licked and affixed to a paper / cardstock page.

Before all these fancy (and sometimes expensive) display items came along we had little glassine (kind of a wax paper) hinges to lick and stick on the stamp and the other folded side on to the paper page. This will usually lower the value of your new mint stamps though.

Stock books are OK for single stamps.

Do not use the photo album sticky magnetic pages. the glue on those will stick forever and ruin the stamps.

You can also use glassine (search ebay) envelopes to store your mint (with gum) stamps if you don't need to display them too much.

Keep stamps away from too much sun, moisture of course, and dust. use slip covers on albums and stockbooks whenever possible. Stamps will fade in the sun and dust and moisture will provide a breeding ground for molds and mildews (rust / toning).

Try to store your stamps upright in pages and not laying down too much as the pressure of other things stacked on them will tend to stick yoru stamps to whatever they are stored in after a while.

Stamps that come from the USPS Cave or underground store online wrapped in cellophane plastic should be taken out of that plastic. Not sure exactly why. perhaps causes a micro-environment to form?

Searching on Stamp Community or Google for the above terms and words will yield quite a few topics as a lot of this has been discussed before now and is always good to refresh for young and old.

A good magnifying lens is handy to have and a loupe with 10x magnification (plastic ones available at photography / camera shops) is nice to have also.

If you get interested in the phosphorescent edging (tagging) around and on stamps (usually invisible to the naked eye) an ultraviolet UV lamp is needed. I think short wave for US stamps but you can get a short and long wave combined. Watch out for the plug in ones as they are stronger and can hurt your eyes.

As you possibly get more detailed and involved you may want to get a catalogue or two. There is lots of info online now but a detailed specialized catalog makes you aware of some of the more common errors or varieties that stamps sometimes have (and are interesting to hunt down and acquire.

Any questions?

I either work in front of my computer (so I can be in touch with ebay or you folks) or at my drafting table. I have a piece of black mayfair paper (sort of a higher end construction paper) which goes back and forth between both places. Gives me a black background, plus protects the stamps from dirt on the surfaces, especially the drafting table.

I have a large plastic sturdy folding table,
6' x 3' Bunnings $78
I place it behind me, at the computer
and have a swivel chair.
I can work with my image database, and just swivel to
work on mounting and sorting etc.

I demount it when I'm finished.

I use my dining room table, close to my scanner/computer so I can scan stamps place them in my inventory. I can also then use the computer to help identify any stamps I need to, by going on line.

Its kinda taking over the area...................

When I'm sorting stamps I like to place them on the BACK side of a manila stock page. When I'm ready to move them away from the surface (dining room table, floor, bed, whatever) I can pick them up and stack them very carefully in one pile.
The manila page is heavy enough to not bend too much in the process of moving them. If you want a less expensive way, you can just go with cutting up manila file folders, they just won't have the stiffness.
Unfortunately, this means I have several piles of manila stockpages with different sorting projects going at the same time. But at least it's neat.

You can also use the manila stock pages as a temporary home for your stamps while they wait for you to mount them.