Older Stamp Mounting And Storage Methods

I've been buying a number of "older" colections recently and trying to salvage the stamps. Most of them are hinged onto album pages and a few mounted with primitive or hand-made mounts. Quite a few of the mint stamps are stuck on the pages either through sloppy hinging or humidity.

This means a significant percentage of the stamps have to be soaked and cleaned before I can do anything with them and I have noticed, of those I try to clean up, I am losing about 5-10% because of thins or other imperfections caused by previous handling. It's also very time-consuming.

These days we have a variety of storage materials to prevent this kind of damage. It makes me wonder how many of the great classic stamps are really in poor condition and whether anyone knows how collectors from philately's early days protected their stamps.

I recently bought a set of Scott internationals that haven't had a stamp added to them in at least 60 years. This is my first attempt at a ww collection and while the album pages are a little yellow and a little stinky I am amazed at how fresh the stamps inside look,seems the album protected them well.. All the stamps are hinged with a slightly larger hinge than what we buy today,but they peel of about as easy as a 3m post-it note with no damage at all,and hardly noticeable gum disturbance on the mint stamps. (Must be dennisons) .But yeah,that is a great question,how all those pre 1940 issues held up so well

Perhaps we should slice up post-it pads and to use as hinges for our stamps. Those of us that prefer hinges for MLH and used stamps.
Terry

From past reading I gather that the early hobby collectors fixed their stamps in their albums using various methods such as pasting them to the page, using the margin paper to make hinges, and licking and sticking mint stamps to the page. Early on there weren't any albums so people used what was available, such as school exercise books, notebooks, and ledgers. I imagine that the great collectors like Ferrary would have been more astute about protecting their stamps. Whatever they used, it is from early collectors that we have the sources for our burning desire to own these miniature masterpieces.

Terry

Ferrary and one of his beauties....

Ferrari had a LOT of postal history, and a relatively smaller number of stamps. There actually exists a few sets of quality B+W photos of his complete collection in about 40 or 50 loose leaf volumes. Each volume has a stack of pages about 2 inches thick inside. Pretty amazing stuff.

A short history of Phillipp Von Ferrary here......

http://blog.echarta.com/2013/01/12/...ion-ferrary/

Terry

On an issue related to Storage Methods, I recently resurrected my collection after about 50 years of inactivity. Had it stored on a closet shelf in a cardboard box with no problems over the 50 years. Since resuming the hobby, I have focused on US, and have a little more disposable income than when I was 10. Hence, I am slowly replacing used/hinged stamps with MNH in Showgard mounts, and purchasing some more expensive stamps. I am limited on storage space and have a concern about where/how is the best storage solution and I will likely pass the collection on to my children. I am reluctant to store anything in the garage with annual temperatures ranging between mid 20's to over 120 in the summer. I can keep my albums indoors but still worry about insect activity, such as silverfish. I located one article http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/conservat...ces/insects/ but it did not really address hobbyist. Do you routinely take precautions when storing your collections and extra stock? Something simple like mothballs or cedar chips?

I keep a large packet of silica (about the size of a deck of cards) in my cabinet where I store my stamps to keep the humidity down as this is in my office that can get a bit humid in the summer, although I keep the dehumidifier on all the time. Garages tend to be very humind, would suggest keep away from there for sure.

Thanks, Faken. I'll pick up some Silica. I note that once saturated with water, the gel must be regenerated by heating it to 250 °F for two hours. I would assume that the length of time between regenerations would depend on the relative humidity, thus periodic maintenance.

We live in a 100 year old house with no central air and hot water radiators. I've found my bedroom closet is the best place for my stamps. With the door always closed the temp and humidity doesn't vary much. Even when the rest of the house is hot and sticky or 20 below (today) and very dry.