Showgard Mounts

I had to stop using Showgard. This is what happens after the mounts sit for a period of time. This was a unopened pack.

Yep, I've noticed the same thing with Showgard. Prinz mounts works best for me now ... seem to very stable (stay flat) over time.

Do you think it is a humidity problem? Either in the area you live or actually at the point of sale where they may have sat even longer? I haven't noticed any issues with my Showgards, I do live in a dryer area.

But if they are cut down to size and fixed to the page, do they then lie flat? Worst case scenario I guess would be that the buckling transfers to the paper - but might be worth a trial before throwing them out.

I'm just starting to move my collection into a new hingeless album.
I have no previous experience with mounts so I was wondering if any of you have used the
type mounts that are split along the top edge? Another member indicated that stamps often shift in the top loading mounts.

The top load mount was my choice because inserting stamps is made easier and it seems that the more common "G" type mounts split down the back might damage stamps while inserting them. I just hope stamp shifting doesn't make me sorry about my recent investment.

This is something I have pondered (but not lost sleep over) for quite some time. If the package was unopened, how do you know the mounts were not made this way? Not being a plastics manufacturer, I don't know exactly how they are made. Is it a thin, discrete amount of thinner which makes the top and bottom seals, or is it the application of a hot metal device? At what point would the quality control mechanism reject a strip? I'm interested to hear what someone who understands the process has to say about it.

"They don't make them like they used to". Sorry for the cliche, but it's true. It's getting to the point where for some things, they are unusable right out of the box. We need a Consumer Products Quality Commission.

Off my soapbox. The mount looks like that because of how thin the material is now when they make it. I have a memory long ago of those strips coming out of the package nice and stiff. Now they flop like cold cuts.


-IBFS

I went back to check all my boxes of strip mounts and they still look flat. Some were old dealer stock so have been around awhile. But in looking at the precut individual mounts, they all have a slight curl.




I'd do a sample page for trial and error. Using an inexpensive stamp as a test dummy, you can see if you have any issues in just inserting or removing stamps from split mounts but can also gauge if an increase in the mount height makes it easier. If the stamp is a little snug in a 25mm mount, go to 27mm. I've found that is when I have trouble, the mount is snug and when you fold the stamp in back into the mount you can bend perfs. With clear mounts, the added size is not as noticeable. I have no history with stamps in top load mounts shifting, but again, maybe a sample page put into use as a test. Although it sounds as if you have already bought top loads, can always sell and switch to split backs.

that will be me, this is highjacking this tread, I will reply on the first tread

I do live in a humid area but my stamp supplies are kept in my study which is a fairly constant temperature. I switched to Prinz a few years ago with no problems. I kept a few packs of unopened Showgard mounts. I noticed this this morning when I opened the package.

They will not lay flat when cut unless it is a really small cut.

Those using Showgard might just want to keep an eye out.

I have used about 10,000 Showguard mounts and never had that problem. On 20-30-year-old mounts sometimes the adhesive cracks but I've never had any trouble with buckling. I damaged maybe a half-dozen stamps out of 10,000, I think, in the process of putting it in or taking out out of a split-back mount. I've damaged a lot more while taking stamps off hinged album pages.

Damaging stamps happens from carelessness, for the most part, whether using hinges or mounts or stock-books. I think I've damaged more putting them in or taking them out of stockbooks than in mounts, probably because I am just more careful with mounts and get careless more easily with stockbooks (I keep my duplicates and some unmounted stock in stockbooks). For someone else it may be the exact opposite.

Repeat after me: "Haste makes waste."

I've had the exact same thing happen to me with Scott Mounts that had sat around for a while.

With mounts a lot depends on outside factors; heat, humidity, the fullness of the album and how the album has been stored. Any mount can buckle under the right (philatelically wrong) conditions. Split back mounts can damage the gum of stamps over time, I have seen a lot of NH stamps with a horizontal stripe from the mount. Heat and humidity, the old enemies of stamps, can do awful things to stamps in mounts.
I always use stockbooks, when I do use a mount for something special it is always oversize.

I have the same problem with CTO stamps with glue at the back; make me wonder if it's not the glue the problem. If the glue is more or less humidity sensitive the dilatation factor will not be the same make it shrink at the back

I use top load mounts and yes sometimes the stamps shift a bit, but I don't see this as much of a problem. Actually, it is a chance to revisit your stamps that need repositioning.

In addition, top load mounts are more flexible as they can also be trimmed at the top, cut to shape for triangular stamps, or used in strips for multiple stamps.

Actually I purchase only 5 size and I cut the top, I place the stamps in the stip, cut the width and after I turn it 90 degree to cut the top. Anyway a 31 and 27 as example cost the same