Crystal Mounts

I know I'm new here, but wanted to jump in on the Crystal Mounts discussion.

A couple of years ago I finally found and retrieved my late mother's stamp collection. She would have been active with it in the 1970s. Much of the mint was mounted with Crystal Mounts. Some stamps are fine and the mounts haven't changed at all. But most of the Crystal Mounts have transmogrified in some way or other -- the glue strip turning brown, occasionally migrating to the stamps, or, most often and most frustratingly, the mounts have "shrunk" a little bit, curling the stamps by putting a ripple in them or turning the perfs in on themselves. It's a shame -- a true shame, considering the influence that Harris had on the hobby in those days.

Anything mounted in Showgards (mostly US) is perfectly fine.

-- Dave

Here's another independent evaluation on these mounts:

http://www.Deleted30/stampstore/original%20gum

As I used Crystal Mounts myself back as a young collector, I seem to recall they were considerably less expensive to purchase than the Showgard. When you're on a fixed allowance, I suppose that's why so many were sold to kids and novice collectors. But then again, no one in the 1970s probably had a clue that these mounts would deteriorate over time, so perhaps the statements on the back of the package that they would never warp or discolor, wasn't an outright lie, but just that the manufacturer didn't know themselves what long term storage would do to these mounts over time.

I was confused about the diffrence betwen crystal mounts and Showguard Clear mounts. I suppose because they were clear I thought of them as crystal. I wrote Vidiforms and asked them abbout this issue and they wrote back and said there mounts have never caused damage to a stamp and are not crystal mounts. So now we know, or least I know there is a difference between crystal mounts from HE Harris and Showguard Clear mounts which , thankfully, I have ben using all along. Sure gave me a scare there I must say.
Nick

Nick: Once you have seen examples of each, you wouldn't have any confusion on this at all. It's sometimes just hard to see this stuff online. The Crystal Mounts had a strip of adhesive at the top on the back. They are quite a bit thinner too, and you slide a stamp through the openings on the cut sides (left or right). The Showgard mounts (whether clear or black) are gummed all over the back (you just carefully moisten a little of it to mount it on a page), but have split backs, and that's how you place the stamp in the mount. You do have to be careful about moistening the back of the mount too close to the split, as you can accidentally moisten the stamp as well.

I'm sorry I'm still wrapping up a move, as otherwise it'd be easy to take a shot of examples of both, and you'd have no problem distinguishing between them. But rest assured, if it's a split back, it's not a Crystal Mount, and if it has a distinctive band of adhesive at the top on the back, then it's a Crystal Mount (or a lookalike -- not sure if some other brand copied this).

-- Dave

Check previous page of this thread, I posted a picture of an old Crystal Mount with that nasty strip of adhesive on the back as referred to above.

I just spent about a week of my vacation at home in the US removing stamps from crystal mounts that I had and putting them in lighthouse and scott mounts. Fortunately, none of them had discolored yet. I used them for a few years when I was rather financially limited. Today, I know better. The adhesive on the back of the mounts "splotched" the page I had them mounted on. So, it's a good thing that I stepped in when I did.

Last year I was cleaning out my closet and found a box with several unopened packs of Crystal Mount- part of a supply lot I bought on ebay years ago, I had tossed them aside with the idea I could put them on ebay someday. Knowing what I now do about these, I thought all of a minute, then tossed the whole thing. I slept well that night..