It seems from your 'name' you would have a predilection for hinges, but your explanation is the best I've seen to date.
It is also very timely as I just received my first shipment of Scott mounts to get me started again, and no question, on a per stamp basis they can be cost prohibitive, especially if one is mounting used stamps that have values below the cost of the mount!
One of the problems I have is I have an OCD personality, requiring everything to be organized 'just so', and the thought of intermingling hinged and mounted stamps in the same album is not something I would want to consider.
I intermingle mounted and hinged stamps in the same album, sometimes on the same page. I use clear mounts, however, as I agree that mixed hinged and black backgound mounts would look pretty crappy. I generally only mount more expensive stamps, and stamps mounted in clear mounts blend in with hinged stamps fairly well. I collect a lot of different countries, primarily in used condition, and most of the stamps are essentially worthless.I refuse to pay more for the mount than the stamp itself, which would be exactly the case for probably 80% or more of the (many, many thousands of) stamps in my collection. I do have some more expensive (by my standards) stamps in my collection and I do use mounts for them, but I am an unrepentant hinger for the vast majority of stamps that I have.
As mentioned previously, I have an OCD personality so intermingling hinges and mounts would be very difficult for me to accept.
As careful as I have been cutting the mounts to the exact size, I still am less than satisfied unless they 'fit within the border' for each stamp. (And yes, I was one of those kids who always stayed within the lines when using crayons! )
What I am considering is putting the better quality stamps in a good, hingeless album and the rest in the something less, perhaps using hinges.
The whole thing is in the consideration phase at this point, and it will likely take me some time to come up with a final determination.
In an attempt to temper my OCD I collect the Scott International "Big Blue" album. Old, 1943,non archival and yellowed. I collect mint,used and mingle hinged and mounted (clear mounts). I use split backs as the old flimsy pages may cause the top loaded ones to fall out. Though I need to experiment. I also collect US Beer stamps recently for my continued therapy. These stamps are collectible with tears,rips,creases,bends,holes,stains,pieces missing,no gum,thins,scrapes, tortured and mutilated. The last Beer stamp I acquired has a love note written on the reverse. An over reaction to my years of MNH and perfection and the stresses that result?
I hadn't heard the "horse"" theory about gum. Sounds mad. Horse-meat is, after all, eaten extensively in Europe - and presumably subject to checks for BSE (or at least I hope it is, having munched my way through horse steaks, burgers and mince). Or would the horses not intended for the food chain be exempt from checks?
As Artful has, I think, said elsewhere, modern hinges are fine if you're very careful not to dampen them too much. I had a phase of using mounts, but now I'm largely back to using hinges for everything except UMM and stuff with a reasonably high CV (£20-25+ for mint, higher for used). Looks so much better, in my view.
Could not agree more - but then again we are talking about governmental agencies that may not always (!) use rational thought.
I lived in England and worked in Europe for a number of years and was exposed to the specialized "boucheries chevalines" in France that are butcher shops specializing in "horse beef". Have to admit I tried it but found the taste unappealing.
Interesting though that may be, not sure it has anything to do with glue used on hinges, other than if indeed, it was once hide glue and has been banned for whatever reason, likely not a lot we can do about it.
I find it highly unlikely that a prohibited animal product was part of the formulation for Dennison hinges. Even things like animal bones are a prime ingredient in gelatin and most of us eat lots of that in one form or another. Most "organ meat" such as brains, lungs, pancreas, spleen, etc are steered away from human consumption (at least in the US), but I can't imagine that something like pig brains or cow lungs or sheep spleens were part of the gum formulation, at any stage in the process. I could potentially see animal bones being involved somewhere, but those have never been prohibited in the US.
I got an email response from the supplier of current stamp hinges. They said that they don't make the paper nor the gum for their hinges. They buy the paper pre-gummed from only one supplier and in a large quantity.
After researching the hinge story for many years the only fact I can state is that all stamp hinges in the world today are made by a company called Prinz located in Germany.
Looking for the perfect hinge? Read all about it! Once again, it is mentioned that the ingredients were not environmentally safe. American Philatelist June 2015. http://stamps.org/userfiles/file/AP...Talk0615.pdf
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Posted 06/08/2015 5:03 pm
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