Question About Albums For Used Stamps

What do people use for collecting used stamps? Are hinges still popular? I have a hingeless set of albums for my mint stuff but it seems overkill for used. I have been thinking about working on a used collection since my mint wanted list is getting too expensive. I like albums and will use one but was looking for some recommendations for albums. I am going to use the old Scott master album with the mountie for a project but would like a nice modern one. I have a copy of the Harris album but I don't really like it very much. Ideas?

I've got Minkus country albums for Turkey, The Netherlands, East and West Germany at home. Here with me in the desert, I've been printing off the quadrilled pages from stampalbums.com and using them to supplement the amos online worldwide album. I didnt' want to shell alot of money for albums now only to lug them back to the US when I finish. For mint stamps always clear hawid mounts and for the majority of my used I still use hinges.

Mystic's Heirloom has been treating me well for my used collection. I'm not sure if they make them for other countries or not (I imagine they do) but that might be a good way to go? I use hinges for my used stuff (post 1920's).

For certain albums (certain collections/countries of primary interest) I use mounts for everything, simply so I can easily replace copies when I find better ones. For general worldwide I haven't really started yet, so not sure what I will do, but I lean towards mounts for all (I dislike hinges). But I generally collect stamps up to 1940 or so. If I were to collect used beyond that date I might use hinges.

Like Hungary for Stamps, I use mounts for the classical WW 1840-1940 collection.

• The clear mounts are unobtrusive, and one focuses on the stamp(s)on the page.
• It is very easy to upgrade to a better stamp- simply remove the old, put in the new specimen.
• The modern hinges are way too sticky for me.

I started with black mounts, but quickly switched to clear mounts, because as JkjBlue says, they are unobtrusive. To whit, at first glance I thought the stamps above were hinged because I didn't notice the mounts.

I am also mounting the mounts using removable adhesive so if I ever abandon my current album(s) I can reuse the hinges.

Tom,

It is a great question. For what its worth, my Newfoundland collection: for my mint stamps, I go all out with a lighthouse clear mount album with a binder so that I can add pages easily. for my used, I go low end, and just use a stock album from lighthouse, and line them up sequentially. I have an extra unused one if you want it.

Tom

I take the position that if a stamp is worth preserving, you might as well spend the money and do it as well as you can. I no longer use hinges (apologies to those guys and gals who still do - hopefully modern hinges don't do much harm). Any stamp that I keep in my permanent collections (mint or used) is either in Lighthouse mounts or on Vario sheets or both. Mint extras are stored in Vario pages and used ones in glassines in stock books. Some exceptions but that's my general system.

I've just been breaking down a couple of old collections where most of the stamps were hinged. The hinges were the old style hard-to-remove types and the last collector of these stamps put the hinges on backwards, i.e. long fold on the stamp and short side on the album page. Guess what - when he or she licked the short stub of the hinge, he or she also licked the gum on the mint stamps with the not unexpected result that many of the stamps were stuck to the pages. Only solution - soak the mint stamps and completely remove the gum. Stamps not ruined but some value lost. Has turned me off hinges for good.