Maybe The Last Box Of Dennison Hinges Was Sold At A Stamp Auction

With the strong prices for good hinges pushing up demand . You have to think somewhere the last box of DENNISON HINGES will finally be sold .

I am thinking TODAY IS THE DAY . never ready to discount the fact that there is another box out there . But after 40 years of demand and none being made, maybe the box at Rasdale Auctions was that box .

It sold for a top bid of $700.00 plus the juice for 40 packets of hinges .

Hardly the last box. They're out there. Just the other day a lot of 7 unopened packs sold for $233 on ebay (nearly doubled the price per pack!)

The ebay lot looks like each hinge cost 3.3 cents. Surely this is greater than the value of many of the stamps the hinges will be mounting. Not to mention, most of these stamps will have been hinged prior, so with little individual value it seems crazy to me to be concerned by how sticky the hinge will be. I'd rather spend $233 on stamps.

If not on stamps, I'd rather spend the money on hingeless pages, albums and slipcases.

Rasdale actually sold full boxes of 50 green packs Dennison hinges, one in each auction #451-#454 (4 boxes total), and then in auction #455 sold a partial box of 45 packs. I assume they received all 5 boxes at the same time, and they don't have more. In the latest auction today #456 there weren't any green packs, but the box they sold was partial box (40 packs out of 50) of the red white & blue. If the same pattern holds (sell full boxes first, then partial boxes) they don't have any more full or partial boxes of green, or red white & blue.

It is always surprising the stuff that is still out there. I collected fruit crate labels and old magic related material. There are dealers I know that continue to cultivate leads and find warehouses, basements and storage facilities packed with the stuff. Time capsules filled with merchandise from the 40's, 50's and 60's and earlier. I think that it will be a long time before all of the hinges are found.

It is monday after the auction ,the biggest question is, was that the last of the huge Dennison Hinges find by Rasdale ?
Between May 22 ,2022 and yesterday August 20,2023 , They sold a total of 324 packages of 1,000 hinges . Fair enought that was the supply .

The next question that needs to be asked ,which is not that easy to answer is ---How many packets of Dennison Hinges are destroyed { destroyed here means used up ,once it is ripped open, it destroys half its value to a buyer } . The question is how many packets are used up each year ? If you say 324 packets each year . Then the find and sale by Rasdale delayed any major increase for a year . AGREE ?

"I think that it will be a long time before all of the hinges are found " Agree , Your right .

But it is not the 1 or 2 packets of hinges that is out there ,that can be found over the next 40 years .

Dennison Hinges are not purchased to mount 1,000 stamps or 2,000 stamps ,my understanding is the need of hinges by a collector is to hinge 10,000 to 50,000 stamps so 10 finds or 50 finds only satisfies one collectors needs .

Maybe a naive question, as I don't use hinges and haven't since the mid 80's; but why are Dennison hinges so sought after?

They are highly "peelable."

This may sound stupid or makes no sense to some who read this or I just don't explain it correctly .

Yes the highly peelable is important , especially on mint stamps some hinges are like "hinges of steel " to any gum on the stamp . Some hinges glue melts into the gum on the back of stamps causing all the gum and maybe a thin developes on the stamps when you peel them off .

Second reason is I move stamps around that are already mounted , If I only wet 1/3 of the large folded side of the hinge , I can move it twice without replacing the hinge .

Here's another potentially naive question... Why would anyone use hinges for any stamp when there's Showgard, Prinz (etc.) and hingeless albums? Does it all come down to being a matter of cost?

No, it's usually a matter of taste. Hinged stamps, particularly used ones, have a more attractive appearance on the page. And, for those of us with the odd fastbound album, hinges are essential.

To Geoff's point, many collectors dislike the look of some stamps on a page mounted with hinges and some put up in mounts. It also takes a lot longer to mount stamps in mounts vs. hinges. And, as Floortrader posted, it is very difficult to try and move mounts around with the hope they will stick down again. Lastly, mounts are much thicker than hinges, so if many album pages have some mounts, the album becomes much thicker causing the pages to warp and the binding to lay partially open. Think of a piece of pie, with the spine of the stamp album being the small point on the pie slice. Takes up a lot of room on a shelf vs. an album with only hinges.

I am a bit confused with some of the responses. Floor Trader didn't you say in another post that you were the lucky bidder and won the hinges and was great news?

Chesham --- Yes ,you are correct .


That last box was the newer Red ,White and Blue packets . The first five auctions were the Green packages . as TSMATX stated above .

For new readers and collectors ,here is the difference in the hinges ,notice the "Green " packets are unfolded hinges .