Stamp Mounts And Envelopes

Hello,

In the past couple of months I have collected quite a few mint stamps. I'm now in need of stamp mounts and glassine envelopes. What are the two most common sizes for both of the needed supplies? I was just going to take a chance and order , but budget just doesn't allow for ay mistakes.

Donna

Just thinking outside the box a bit,
something for your consideration.
I am not a big user of mounts, but I would suggest
(others may correct me here) that at a point where the
mounts are employed, one would have the majority of stamps
ready and awaiting, and the page designed to accomodate them.
Anything prior to this could see you readjusting the page
and in doing so, damaging or wasting mounts.

To remedy this, and to address the glassine question, perhaps
a "stock book" would suffice ?
Modern New stockbooks are expensive, but at our stamp club
we often see stock books of varying sizes (generally Chinese), go for $1-$5 each
and the expensive lighthouse style, say $15.

Stockbooks are a step above glassines for ease of viewing and use
and may be an alternative for you.

Failing this, my personal choice of glassine would be
the size of half a postcard.

Hi Donna,

I use #4 Glassines which are 3-1/4 inches by 4-7/8 inches in size.

They may be big for single stamp but for my fingers they are a good size.

They are about the size of the #102 dealer cards, although the actual clear pocket on those cards is smaller than the card itself. Leaves room for writing notes and numbers at the top.

One thought is how many of these you will be storing. They do make red boxes for storing these 102 or #4 glassines,. I think they have a dust cover but perhaps they are a drawer type of affair. Don't have one myself.

Rod's idea of a stock book is good too. I have two stock books plus I use plastic Vario stock pages. But I have a small amount of stamps. Well, now that I look in that corner, no, it is rather a lot. Just not sorted yet! Out of sight, out of mind.

I use #4 Glassines. They are big enough to put duplicates in and store pretty easy. I cannot help much on the mounts. I have so many types I bought cheap that I just pull out what I need at the moment.

If you're talking about long term storage of a smaller number of stamps I agree that stock-books are pretty flexible and safe. If you're talking about large numbers of stamps (1000+, for example) I would recommend 102 or 104 cards in a red box. I've kept my accumulation safe in 104 cards in the boxes for as much as 25 years or more.

http://www.subwaystamp.com/prodinfo...er=ZGK102CK2

I plan on having a collection of US plate blocks mounted in an album. Until I have enough for an album, I keep them in glassines (#3, 4, 5, 6+) depending on the size of the block. The more valuable ones I place inside a mount and place the whole shebang in a glassine.

The same could apply with your stamps, place them in a mount as a holder, and then store them in stockbooks. It makes the stamps look pretty and further safeguards them against damage.

Edited for greater grammatical correctness.

I really like Smauggie's idea of putting them in mounts first.

That's pretty good protection and later on, if you decide to back out, you can always re=use the mounts.

My preferences for all the stated reasons are #3 glassines and 102 cards in Red Boxes. When it comes to mounts you have a real problem because there is no "common size". This is easily seen by just looking at the somewhat bewildering and intimidating Showgard list. My recommendation is to use stock books and acquire the needed mounts on a gradual basis as you progress.

Well, it seems as if the general consensus is not to use mounts. I am leaning more towards the stock books. The album that I am using, I am using strictly for canceled, but I do have some mint stamps that I wanted to keep protected. I'm going to have to start other albums for the mint stamps. I'm trying to keep the topicals in the countries that I am focusing on down to a minimum.

This is the countries and subjects that I am working on.

Bhutan-Stamps in general, my favorite.

Ireland-famous paintings*, castles. (Things that have to do with the countries history and my family is mainly from Ireland)

Japan-Geisha's, samurai, famous paintings*, ceramics. (Things that have to do with the countries history. My hubby's mother was from Kyoto, Japan)

Monaco-Princess Grace and Prince Rainier, famous paintings*

Vatican-One of the many that my grandmother collected.

*Famous paintings were my mothers favorite, but she collected from World Wide. I decided that I could narrow that down.

This is the easiest for me to do without trying to touch base with every country out there. I'm going for the kiloware for the cancelled to put in the albums that I already have started. Extra'a on the canceled I am keeping in the glassine envelopes for trade. As much as I would like to keep it down to just these countries I know that in a few years, I'll probably have more countries and topicals that I hadn't planned on, but isn't that just the fun of collecting????

Thanks everyone,
Donna