Mounting Of Plate Blocks In Minkus/Harris Albums

Hi, I have a number of US Plate Blocks collected as a Cub Scout. I picked up a sued HE Harris and Minkus plate block albums (no stamps). Can anyone help me with how best to mount these MNH blocks? For example, mount types, sizes, etc

Much appreciated

Measure the plate blocks (in mm), then buy the appropriately-sized Scott/Prinz/Hawid/Showguard mounts. Just about every philatelic retailer will carry some or all of these, like https://www.ihobb.com/c/STAMP_MOUNTS_HINGES.html

This presumes, of course, that the pages of your album are thick enough to support the weight of all these blocks and mounts. My suspicion is that they're too thin, since most of these older albums just assume the owner will use hinges (which would defeat the whole point of you having gotten all of these MNH).

The Harris album pages are too thin to properly display plate blocks. They are OK for a small collection that you don't intend to expand, but for a serious collector, go to the Scott albums - Commemorative Plate blocks and/or Regular and Air Plate Blocks.

Be sure of what you want to collect (aka "where do I spend my money?"). I made the mistake of trying to collect both PBs AND singles. Wish now I had just sold one and concentrated on the other.

As an aside, I decided a long time ago that I disliked having separate singles / plate blocks / souvenir sheets / First Day Cover albums or storage systems, I like having everything together. I'm also not a dedicated collector of plate blocks or FDC's, so I don't have that many. When I do have a plate block or FDC I prefer to insert a blank page after the album page that has the corresponding single(s) and mount the plate blocks and FDC's there. This may not apply to your situation.

The Harris pages are thin and blank Harris pages from Whitman Publishing (current owners of the Harris brand) are terrible. I order Neenah Bright White Cover stock, 65 lb. (176 g/m2) 11 x 17-inch ledger paper through Office Depot (92102). It is said to be lignin free. I use a guillotine style paper cutter to trim the sheets to the Harris size of 9 x 12 inches. Office Depot can trim for you the entire half ream (250 sheets) for 25 cents a side. At Hobby Lobby I've found "The Paper Studio" brand cardstock (the weight isn't on the package but it's in the 60+ lb. range) that says it is lignin free. It measures 12 x 12 inches so one would just need to trim it to a 9-inch width to fit the Harris album.

I agree that it's better to mount other items on separate pages behind the main page. The only problem is that you have to have more binders.

I faced a similar situation and decided as others are suggesting that the Harris pages are too flimsy. My plate blocks are all from the 70s when I was a teenager and my dad worked at the post office. He'd bring all the new issues home as they came out including the plate blocks, so these are special to me - my favorite, the Sleepy Hollow commemorative from 1974. I spent some time mastering the Album Easy program and made my own pages on higher quality paper (lots of good recommendations above and in other threads on this forum). Then I mounted the blocks with Showgard mounts and put the whole set in a nice Vario binder.

The majority of the US plate blocks with have common sizes - definitive, horizontal, and vertical blocks. It is when you get to multiple plate numbers where it gets more complicated.

There are some guides from mount sellers

57 x 55 U.S. Regular Issue Plate Block

73 x 63 U.S. Champions of Liberty Plate Block

106 x 55 U.S. Rotary Press Standard Commemorative Plate Block

105 x 57 U.S. Giori Press Standard Commemorative Plate Block

127 x 70 U.S. Giori Press Jumbo Commemorative Plate Block,