Best Stamp Hinges

AL-----The article did say the early FOLD-O-HINGES made by Harold Cohn are very good but the later ones were inconsistent in quality.

Hi !

Well, after going thru several packs of vintage Dennison's over the last year, I have only one thing to say...........

"pass the oats please"

I found this thread very useful, I decided to do a real-world test of peel-ability for only the new hinges currently available on the market.

Every few days I'll add a new row with the same variety of hinges on this page and in about a week I'll go at the page carefully with tongs to remove the stamp/hinge from the page as well as the hinge from the stamp. I'll post follow up pics of my findings.

Truthfully I suspect they'll all tear both the page, the hinge and or the stamp. I have *hope* that since the outside of both the FOLDO and the G&Ks state they are peelable that they will tear *less* but I don't have my hopes up high.

I can't afford to spend as much as folks do on the classic hinges but want to protect my collection as much as possible.

I collect cancelled worldwide, don't care about MNH at all obviously and just enjoy the process and simpler aspects of the hobby but I still don't want to permanently glue my stamps into the book which is what it feels like I'm doing when I use the fasto hinges I unfortunately bought too many packets of when I jumped back into collecting!



brands in this test:
UNI-SAFE FOLDO-HINGE (claim to be peelable)
G&K (claim to be peelable)
LINDER ("das original" - right)
UNI-SAFE Stamp Hinges (pictured in full)
Lighthouse/Leuchturm FASTO

There is another similar post on hinging I saw this morning. Read TheArtfulHinger's comments on moisture.

https://www.stampcommunity.org/topi...53224#474238

All modern day stamp hinges are manufactured by the same company. Prinz in Germany. They are then repackaged, renamed and sold. The glassine has changed from the old days and the glue formula for Dennison has been lost to history.
The glue factory story has been picked up and repeated over and over again with no basis in fact that I have been able to ascertain.

Although Dennison's glue formula is lost to history, chemical analyses could possibly reveal the ingredients and percentages there of, IF the market would make the research profitable.

I believe I remember reading before that part of the reason Dennisons are so much better is the texture of the gum as much as the gum itself. The gum on modern hinges is very smooth, whereas it's rougher on Dennisons. The upshot of this is that on modern hinges the entire surface adheres to the stamp, whereas on Dennisons the rougher texture of the gum means that less of it actually attaches to the stamp. This is why sometimes I'll purposely wrinkle up modern hinges a bit as it means less of the hinge will actually be attached to the stamp.

If attempting to conduct a "scientific" test of hinges, you have to somehow make sure the exact same amount of moisture is applied to each hinge, ideally on the same stamp with the same kind of paper. This is very difficult to do in a home setting, and absent that control factor you can't be certain it's the hinge itself and not the amount of moisture causing it to adhere. Even Dennisons will leave a remnant attached to the stamp if you slobber all over them. A dab of moisture followed by touching the hinge to the back of your hand to remove the excess is usually the right way to do it. Modern hinges actually aren't all that bad if you're very careful not to over-moisten them. Most complaints about modern hinges would go away if people would just learn to go easy on the moisture.

The potential for damage will also vary according to the stamp itself. For example, many of the Portuguese colonial issues of the 50s (produced, from memory, by Courvoisier), are thinner and far less robust than the engraved issues of the 20s. The stamps thin very easily.

With regards to hinging stamps these days, it is assumed that you mostly mean used stamps and maybe some previously heavy hinged mint stamps since hinging mint never hinged stamps especially older ones can result in a big loss of their value and hinging new stamps can render them almost worthless and undesirable for collecting. A hinge manufacturer that used to make peelable hinges told me that a good quality glassine and gum Arabic were the ingredients that he used.

Agree with ARTFUL HINGER , half the effort is not the hinge but the person applying the moisture. I use both old Dennison hinges and the modern ones . The right amount of moisture makes all the difference on the removal .

To touch on the subject of moisture once more, a more revealing experiment would be to test the same hinge with varying amounts of moisture. All modern hinges are made by the same mfr, anyway, so there's no difference in the hinge itself. Do a test fully moistening them and then with progressively less and less. The less moisture you use, the more peelable they'll be. Guaranteed.

Hinges may be manufactured by the same company nowadays, but they are different by brand. I've used Prinz's in the past and was not happy with them -- too thick and not very peelable. I recently bought DAVO and Lighthouse FASTO hinges to test. The bags are certainly identical designs but the hinges are not.

DAVOs are palpably thinner than FASTOs, though I suspect that is due to more gum on the latter. DAVOs are a creamy pale yellow color vs. FASTOs being tinted a bright yellow. The older Prinz hinges I have are on white thicker glassine paper. All three have shiny gum surfaces.

My test was on the current Speedrille pages. They're relatively fragile and demand peelable hinges to not leave a thin or chunk of hinge. My method has been to touch the short flap to the inside of my mouth below the lower lip and then affix the short flap to the stamp. The lower half/third of the other flap is wet by a finger again touched to the same place. This is the bare minimum of moisture I can conveniently apply and still make a hinge stick. Using the minimum allows me to lift and reposition the stamp using the same hinge.

The DAVOs were winners hands down. Some might have left a small residue of gum but were definitely peelable. They peeled even when still not completely dry. The FASTOs had too strong a grip though mostly the hinge would self-destruct rather than the page. That would still leave a remnant on the page. I also peeled DAVOs neatly from used Netherlands Indies William III and young Wilhelmina issues, which are quite fragile and easily thinned. Didn't trust the FASTOs there.

The more moisture added, the more each would become unpeelable. It didn't take too much more to make the DAVOs as bad as any other.

Lastly, aside from old Dennisons, a great ancient hinge was made by Stanley Gibbons. They were bigger than current hinges, die cut with rounded edges. The ones I had were unfolded and bundled in a small metal box.

Thanks for the review!

I recently renewed my collecting of used US, and decided to take them out of stockbooks and glassines and place them in a real album. Printed out the Steiner pages and dipped into my precious hoard of several dozen Dennison hinges inherited from a relative. They worked like a charm, but I needed more hinges, and didn't really feel like paying $20 for a packet of vintage Dennisons on ebay.

So I took the plunge with the Prinz hinges from Mystic (hard to beat the price at $3 for 1000), and I have to say that they're not bad (so far, at least). I did a few tests with some duplicate stamps, and found that a good method is to wet the back of my hand or a sponge, apply a little moisture to the hinge, and then blow on it a few times to dry it out a little. I do this to the lower third of the back that gets applied to the page, too. Very minimal moisture.

After a few days, I then tried peeling the stamp off the hinge, and the hinge off the paper, and voila - just as good as the Dennisons, with nary a trace on stamp or page. I'm satisfied so far - here's to hoping the quality isn't variable!

I think The Artful Hinger said it best a few replies ago: it's all about how much moisture you use. The modern Prinz hinges are just as good as the Dennisons at adhering the stamps to the page, and perhaps they might even be superior, assuming the materials they use are acid-free and the Dennisons aren't. But, they're just less forgiving - the acceptable "window" of moisture you can apply in order to maintain a peelable hinge is smaller, that's all. So it just means a little getting used to, but practice it several times on some throwaway stamps and you'll get the hang of it.

The reports of stamp hinging's death have been greatly exaggerated, and I for one am greatly pleased that these exceeded my expectations!

Prinz has stated repeatedly that all modern day hinges are manufactured by their company and no matter what brand are identical.