When Did Stamp Mounts First Become Available To Collectors?

I started to post this in the thread about whether collectors prefer well centered stamps versus hinged stamps if they had a choice between the two, but I thought it better if the question had a thread of its own.

Anyway, one comment that was made suggested that:




As a result of that comment, I was wondering if anyone can identify the exact date or year in which "plastic mounts" became available to stamp collectors. I'm not talking about homemade things, but commercially available products. Is there a patent date credited to someone for such a product before people like Scott, Showgard, Prinz and Hawid perfected the stamp mounts we most often use today?

If this history is accurate, it sound as if Hawid (who provided product to Schaubek back in the 1950's) started it and Showgard first made them available to the American public in 1960, suggesting that they may have been available earlier in other countries:

http://www.showgard.com/about_us.cfm

On the other hand, Hawid states the mounts were invented in 1945 in Berlin, but doesn't clearly identify when they were first commercially available to the public:

http://www.hawid.de/hawid_engl./index_e.html

Probably doesn't matter that much today other than as a trivia question, but I was just curious if anyone has any more information about it.

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

Reviving this thread as I have a related question. When did mounts like showgard and similar brands become common use among collectors. I understand they were introduced to the US market in 1959 but I dont remember them really being commonly used til the 1980s.

I started collecting in 1973, and my uncle (a serious collector) was already using Showgards for his collection at that time. So I was using hinges for used stamps and Showgards for mint, as soon as I got my first album.

I always thought that mounts were a postwar thing while Showgards were a 70/80's thing.

Jack Kelley

I think "Crystal Mounts" were available in the Harris catalog back in the 50s.

When I got into collecting in the late 60's, Crystal Mounts seemed to be the primary mount sold and thought it was really pushed by HE Harris. I do not recall any dealer at the time telling people to not use them. They must have been cheaper than other alternatives.

I guess I should clarify...when did use of Showgards become common and replace Crystal mounts as the mount of choice in the USA?

May 22, 1976 at 3:15pm



Just kidding, of course. But I would say that around early to mid-1970s when black mounts began being used in place of Crystal Mounts. (This is a casual observation based somewhat on my own use.)
Don

51Stud

But that sounds about right. I grew up in a rural area where the only place to get any stamp supplies was the local Woolworth's and I don't recall seeing any other than Crystals there. Mail order would have been option but my dad, being of good Northern New England dairy farmer descent, was too frugal for that until the realization that Crystals were more harm than cure finally convinced him to start using them in the mid-80s.

Hawid date from the 1940s, Showgard from the 1960s -

http://www.michaelkay.co.uk/stamp-m...and-tips.htm

"Since 1959, SHOWGARD mounts have been the most popular, most widely used, and most respected stamp mounts in the U.S. market backed by a 70 year history of safe usage. The SHOWGARD product line has expanded to include First Day Cover Albums, stamp tongs, stocksheets and other philatelic accessories. We also offer the popular HAWID mounts.

For Stamp and Cover collectors our SUPERSAFE and HAGNER product lines offer Mint Sheet and First Day Cover Albums along with hinges, stockbooks, stocksheets and a wide range of philatelic pages, binders and holders.

For Coin and Currency collectors our SUPERSAFE line features an outstanding range of Numismatic Supplies from flips and 20 pocket pages to self adhesive coinholders to currency holders and pages in a wide variety of sizes and formats."

Another early mount brand ... Marlate. Here is an ad from the December 1962 Bureau Specialist - the earliest ad for them I see. And their ads begin to show up in the American Philatelist at about the same time.

Yes, I first saw the awful Crystal Mounts advertised in the later 1950s. They were sold by H.E. Harris who apparently did not know how much damage he was doing. I don't think modern stamp mounts existed in the U.S., anyway, before that. I remember the early Marlate Mounts and a few other brands, as well, in the 60s. I used them sometimes, and they worked just fine. I don't think most collectors used mounts earlier than this even if they were available. And being available in Europe means they might as well have been sold on the moon. We just weren't in touch with buying from Europe back then as we are today. It was very time consuming and too difficult for American collectors. Hinging of common stamps is still common today (despite all the talk about stamp mounts) but mounts began to become much more common in the 1970s. Certainly by the 1980s they were widely used as they are today.

I started using Showgard mounts in the mid-1960's. Since then I have mounted every stamp in my albums and I have over 200 albums. I never use hinges, I switched to Scott mounts in the early 1980's. I starting having a problem with the Showgard mounts coming detached from the page, leaving the glue on the page and none on the mount where it had been moistened.

My Scott Mount orders from Global stamps were almost $300.00 this month and I will probably need about $150.00 next month.

I rarely buy that much in a month but I am currently mounting 3 country collections.

Are Crystal Mounts open on the sides?

I remember getting a collection of U.S. postage that took me DAYS to exhume the corpses of the stamps from the mounts they were in: black backing, sealed on all 4 sides. The worst [CENSORED] pieces of [ALSO CENSORED] ever foisted upon philately.

They were little hermetically sealed stamp tombs. Just awful. In hindsight, the value of the postage simply wasn't worth all the labor involved.

*shudder*

Starting using Showgard mounts in 1962 in my Minkus and then Scott Greece and Switzerland albums MNH. Purchased from Marshall Fields Minkus stamp store/section/area in Chicago. Then on to John Ross still Downtown.Next my many neighborhood stamp stores on Devon Ave. Lastly Archies also on Devon Ave. further west.