More Newbie Questions!

1. What does hinged/unhinged mean? I could not find the term in the glossary.

2. Also, what do you call stamps that have cancels that are phrases or slogans?

3. I have a big old book full of mounted stamps that was given to me when I was a kid. Some may have value, most are probably crap. But anyway, how does one go about removing mounted stamps? Some were mounted with double stick foam tape (ugh I know!) Do I have to tear out the page in the book to do a removal?

Hi!
Hinged/unhinged refers to whether the stamp had - at one time or current - a hinge attached to it. The hinge is a small thin piece of glassine like paper, with a small portion attached to the back of the stamp, and a bigger portion attached to the album. Some stamp hinges carefully can be pulled off, others need soaking in luke warm water.

I can't tell you much about the cancellations, others will likely jump in on that.

Other than using stamp hinges or clear folder like stamp mounts, the use of tape or glue will ruin a stamp and make it worthless.

1. Hinges are used to mount Stamps to an album page. They are little pieces of paper with a small amount of adhesive. When the hinge is removed from an unused stamp it takes part of the original gum with it and therefore decreases the value.

2. Used Stamps

3.Either soak them off or carefully remove them with a pair of good stamp tongs, the latter being riskier but if a stamp is unused with original gum, then soaking will remove all the gum.

To be honest, they're usually called Slogan Cancels! But if you are trying to find them on websites, try searching the word flamme (sometimes flam).

Also you can reasonably refer to them as machine cancels, since they nearly (but not quite) always are. However the two terms are not interchangeable since there are a vast number of other machine cancels which don't have slogans on, e.g. with bars or wavy lines instead.

Proper Hinging Techniques..
http://www.linns.com/howto/refreshe...rcourse.aspx

as opposed to Mounting Stamps
http://www.linns.com/howto/refreshe...rcourse.aspx

KS

The cancels you refer to as phrases are called "Slogan" cancellations and there are collectors who specialize in them. There are also catalogues dedicated to this phase of the hobby as well.

Chimo

Bujutsu

For sure mounting is better than hinging.

Hinges were and still are an easy way to make your stamps stay in your album. they are pretty much a little rectangle of waxed-paper that is gummed on one side and folded ¾ the way up. your supposed to lightly moisten the short flap and touch it to the upper center of your stamp and then do the same to the larger flap to place it on your page. when stamps are removed from stamp albums they are cut and trimmed so the stamps lay flat. the remaining hinge piece that is still attached is what you look for to tell if it is hinged. if there isn't one then it's un-hinged. If the stamp still has it's original gum and no hinge it is mint-no hinge or MNH. If it has the original gum and a hinge remnant then it's call mint hinged or MH.

Here are what slogan cancels look like -
http://www.dcstampclub.org/pdfs/DC_..._Cancels.pdf

OK I hope this help you out a bit?