How To Mount / Present Precancels?

I have been sorting my piles of precancels and bagging them by stae and then as to Bureau/Local. I would like to start actually entering them into my album, but I am held up by the following problem.

Very few (or none) of the stamps I currently have are so perfect that I could never get a better example.

If I use mounts, the cost is prohibitive for so many hundreds of stamps with mostly minimal $ value. I am therefore leaning towards mounting only the "better" ones (definition thereof to be refined as I go), and hingeing the vast majority.

If I hinge them, and then get a better copy, I need to remove the stamp from the page and I am not sure how to get the hinge off the back before I pass them on via ebay or whatever.

I don't want to use stockbooks as I like the idea of printing off from the PSS website (or creating for myself) album pages with the Scott number and/or precancel Type under each stamp.

If I do nothing and continue to search for better copies, the number of ziploc baggies on my dining room table will continue to mount and my family will be unable to eat together at Thanksgiving.

What do others do? Should I continue to sort and wait a while? Should I just start entering them and make myself get over my guilt at the prospect of leaving the hinges on the ones I have to remove and discard? I don't dare soak them off, surely?

Thanks for sharing your experience / advice.

Here's the recommendation right off the PSS web site:

http://www.precancels.com/?page_id=503

I would qualify it, however, by suggesting that it's your collection, so do whatever pleases you. There are no right or wrong answers to the question. A lot depends on the quantity of precancels involved.

Precancel collectors by the very term "precancel" are more interested in the precancel overprint than the stamp itself. Using this approach, the PSS web site references makes perfect sense. Sort by State, then City, then Precancel Type, putting all of the same precancel types together (regardless of denomination).

As to mounting, again do as you please, but as a practical matter, considering the economy of it all (depending on the size of your collection, of course) almost puts aside any idea of using mounts. Mounts are simply too expensive when there are so many precancels and so many towns and types to collect, with only a select few worth more than minimum catalog value.

If stockbook pages are not an option, many on this site will condone the use of stamp hinges for precancels so as to allow them to be displayed cleanly and economically. If you decide to replace a precancel with a better example that is already mounted with a hinge, there is nothing wrong with soaking off the hinge on the stamp you removed. It's done all the time.

Just my opinion, of course.

Are there any tricks to soaking hinges off, then?

I have to admit, I tried it last month on a couple of stamps that came to me with a thick wedge of hinges on the back .... and I could swear the color was faded when I had finished even though the water clarity was not obviously affected. This has made me even more nervous about the idea of soaking old US than when I started out.

Also, does everyone here find they are constantly replacing their precancels with better copies? Perhaps it is inevitable and I should just accustom myself to the idea?

Absolutely, Replace an old one if a better one is found at least for display.
You still may wish to keep it!

I mount using 25mm strips. I can get about 7 definitives across on a page, and 6-8 strips on a page depending on how tightly you want to pack them. I usually use 6 tall max to leave room for annotations and not have an over-crowded look.

That allows me to reconfigure or replace freely, but is less expensive than individual mounts.

Mounting PC's can be done any way you want. I use the PSS method, State, City, Type
but go one further, Issue.

On the hinge removal, how hot is your water? It should be no more than luke warm. If to hot, the color may fade.Change it a couple of times BEFORE you remove the stamp from the paper (or hinge).

PC's are generally a very low value item, Hinge remnents are truely not that important, rips and thins caused by wrongful removal is however.

There are blanket album pages out there (or used to be) so one can mount ones collection.

I would say give a lot of space between big towns, so that you can expand. I usually give a couple of lines to the small towns (where 1 type or two types are known), and many pages for larger cities where there are many many types. (my New York is 20 pages so far!

It is up to you, but you have to get started someplace, so do what you think it right and enjoy the hobby.

Being a newbie in Precancels,
I am mounting according to Stamp Catalogue number of the stamp
then the differing opts, with the code underneath.
This seems to make sense to me, and is easily
employed when a new example arrives.

This is how I received mine originally, which
made no sense, without the corresponding catalogue being on hand
It looks barren and mute to me.
I like my album pages to tell a story.

If I could figure out how to put a picture on this thing I would post a page from my album. I guess that option is something that I will get after my 50 messages?
Anyway, you do your album is the correct way to do it.
Let's take Chicago. This town has 85 different precancel types listed.
I do the same thing as you, list by state, list by town, list by Scott issue number then list by pattern number. It allows the expansion of the album in easier steps this way. Example, if I get a row of one Scott issue filled, I just open a new row
on the next row below it.
I use full size precut Hawdid (Scott) mounts. I use the preprinted state album pages I picked up many years ago. I can then fill up the page, and can move them around to fit the need.
Not saying that is the only way, just the way I do it. Hinges would be fine as well, but if hinges are used, plan ahead so you are not moving them all the time.

Thanks everyone -- for organization, the Bureaus are easier because they are pretty much a known quantity and I can have pages with labeled gaps that I gradually fill as I go along.

The TnT ... still not sure what I will do there. I'd like to organize by Type, not by Scott, for those. But then of course there is the problem of not knowing how many issues came out for each Type. So either I could end up not leaving enough space and having to reprint pages and move everything, or I could end up with pages that are complete but still virtually empty because there was only one or two issues for that Type.

Outside of a specialized catalog for each state, I presume there is no way easily to find out how many issues per type per town?

Ultimately, I may end up accepting that I have to go by Scott and then Type, although having pages full of just one color repeated again and again is not ideal in my mind.

Since I am going to start with my Bureaus, the more immediate problem I have remains the idea of constantly replacing them with better copies. This is alien to me because in my main collections, I use mounts or stockbooks, and I always try to get the best example I can afford, first time around. So there is not so much replacement of stamps and juggling them is easier.

Many of my precancels are pretty poor examples right now, and I do hope they will get replaced in time! For financial reasons, though, I think I will use hinges for the Bureaus -- and just have to get used to the idea that there may be frequent removal and replacement.

Similar to Rod222's experience, here's an example of what NOT to do with mounting precancels:



All I can say about them is that they are sorted by State and denomination. Beyond that, there is no rhyme or reason to how they were mounted, as there is no regard for city or for precancel type. I can't really complain, though, as this is 1 of about 250 pages that were all given to me.

On a lighter note, here's an interesting precancel from an otherwise boring mix of Chicago Bureau Type 61 precancels. It's bisected by a Dallas, Texas box cancel (at least I presume it's a box cancel). No real reason why such a cancellation should have been applied to a precancel in the first place, but it does make for an interesting conversation piece:

Here's what I did for my topical collection the stamps are arranged in geographical order going North to South or East to West following historic Route 66. Nothing fancy as type & catalog number do not interest me.

This is an image from my album. It is part of a 14 page San Francisco, CA breakdown. By doing, State, City, Scott Type and then Precancel type you have more control. IMHO.
Bob

Here is an article I wrote for the Precancel Stamp Society on the subject - there is no BEST way.
VP - Notes
Hinging Binging
My love hate affair with stamp hinges heated up last week. Modern hinges stink! They are a completely un-peelable and are a serious threat to your precancel's health. However, when you have a nice album page and a good showing of stamps on it, old-fashioned hinging makes a pleasing presentation. I try to be a good steward for the precancels I own, so I feel guilty about hinging. I rationalize this by saying my stamps are not going to be relocated off those pages for a good long time. Maybe the next person to own them will be smart enough to soak the whole page when it's time to break down my collections.
Last week I used a whole 1000-pack of hinges to relocate my New Jersey Bicentennial collection from Hagner stock sheets to an album created with the new Gutman/Kimball catalog/database Albummaker. This product will be quite useful to any bicentennial collector, and especially if you specialize in certain states or denominations like I do. NJ takes about 80 pages - if you use the line break after every town option. My album is about half full and it looks much better than it did laid out on stock sheets.
Using the new catalog you get a better sense of the size and organization of bicentennial collecting. Without a catalog - all precancel collecting can seem hopelessly open-ended. A good catalog provides structure for an intelligent hobby presentation. Knowing the size: Small [small binder], Medium [large binder], Large [multiple binders] and Open-endedness of your specialty will help dictate how to mount your specialized precancels. My mounting is all over the lot: Towns & Types [Large/not open] are hinged on loose leaf - with the high value items kept at the bank. The cost of mounts or Hagners for this collection would be prohibitive. My General States [AL/DE/MT/WA] vary in size but all open-ended - kept on Hagner stock pages so I can reorganize them easily. Bicentennials [M/not open] are being switched to Albummaker pages. Overrun Countries [L/open] are hinged on O/C sheets photocopied from the Scotts National O/C page, except that if I only have one from a type I keep them on Hagners. 1918 Offsets [M/not open] I am working on switching from Hagners to Albummaker pages. Pre-1920 postage dues [L/not open] are hinged on Albummaker pages, 1930 & 1931's [L/open] are on Hagners and 1959's [L/open] hinged on loose-leaf with lots of extra space for additions. 1919 Rotaries [S/not open] are on Albummaker pages. I keep Canada [M/not open] in Hawid mounts because so many of them are more than nominal value.
Every collector will specialize, organize, and mount a little differently - Whatever! It's all fun!

Here are specialized San Francisco L7's on 1931 postage dues - showing the basic 7 positions of state under city. To keep these organized, Hagnar style pages are best:

OMG, I had no idea the state could move around under SF. Does it do that on other stamps / cities / states, too? How am I *ever* to know what's a spare and what I need to keep?

I've begun a new mounting project for my small collection of Champion of Liberty precancels. The newer editions of Scotts National album has apage for COL's that makes a pleasant display. I have photocopied the SCott page and IF I have at lease 3 COL's for a precancel type I hinge them on the sheets: