Strange Stamp Mount Sizes

Took a drive to the local stamp store today to buy a few loose mounts. It's very convenient to have a store near by that sells individual strips.

What's even cooler is that he has a bunch of goofy sizes. I had a stamp that was 101 mm tall. It would not fit a 100mm mount, and I didn't like all the extra space in the 105mm. I go into the store, and lo and behold, he has 6 strips of 103mm!

He claims Showgard, at times in the past, had made mounts in odd sizes to accommodate stamps from certain years. His distributor had a bunch of this stuff lying around and he bought it all.

He's going to try and put together a complete list of the non-standard sizes he has for my perusal.

I picked up a 'mounts' auction lot from Harmer Schau about 10-15 years ago. It consisted of a large plastic storage tub of Scott/Prinz mounts, all in large sizes. I've barely made a dent in it over the years, but it's sure handy for mounting souvenir sheets and the occasional cover! These are both mounted in them...

I've seen lots of mount lots for sale. I should grab a cheap one the next time I see it.

Hi Andy

I have had to turn a mount "sideways" to accommodate a weird size.

At the beginning of Showgard they used to put together custom strip packages with weird mount sizes. Unfortunately I used all mine so I have to resort to the "sideways: method. Over the years I have never had a stamp fall out.

Jerry B

I do that all the time. I also bought a Hawid glue pen and make custom sizes as needed.

Hi Andy

A long time ago I bought the Hawid glue pen and ruler. I never got it to work correctly.


Jerry B

Back when I was using an album, I think I figured out the technique with the Hawid glue pen and ruler. On my odd-sized souvenir sheets and the like, the resulting mounts looked professionally done to me.

Sometime perhaps I should write up a little tutorial of what I did.

I understand that now you can only buy the glue pen, but the other little metal device is no longer sold. That's too bad, because I found that very helpful in getting the bead of the gum on the cut seam to lay down with precision, because of a tiny little offset on one side of the metal piece.

I can't get the blue pen to do a nice line parallel to the mount. It always goes off at an angle. I think I've thrown away more mounts than I've kept. But Ukraine issues all these miniature sheets in goofy different sizes. 2 years ago I bought a pack of 91s for a Ukrainian miniature sheet. Here it is 2014 and I have yet to use single 91 strip for another Ukrainian sheet. Very annoying.

That's what that metal tool seems to really help with. I could never get it right (straight and even) until I used that metal thing. A ruler wouldn't seem to do it for me.

I have the tool. Doesn't help any. I need something that can sit flush with the side of the mount and have a bar that goes across the mount. perhaps I need to grab a small metal angle at Home Depot.

Andy, if I'm recalling correctly, I think the way I used it was this (sorry I don't have time to make any diagrams or pictures at the moment):

Let's say you're going to trim the top of the mount in order to reduce the height. And this assumes you've already trimmed the width to the size you need.

First off, I used 2 small post-it's, one on left-hand side and one on the right-, wrapping them around so that the front and back side of the mount are secured together. That way, when you trim the top to reduce the mount to the height you need, everything stays together and doesn't get out of position.

Second, I then used that metal tool. There's one side of it that has that little notch -- just a little inset -- on one side of it. Kind of like what is shown, I think, in step 2 here:



The only difference is that I always did this with the cut side towards me, rather than away from me, like they're showing in the illustration.

Using that tool and in that position, I found that I could get a very even bead of glue on that cut. After putting down that line, I would then carefully put the clear front side of the mount back in place.

Also, unlike those illustrations, I did not dare try this with the stamp or souvenir sheet in the mount.

I too have turned larger mounts sideways. I also have had to use a larger mount and trimmed it to make it open at the top like a Hawid mount. Sometimes you can use a split back and get two mounts out of one.
Canada is bad at having printed stamps of all weird sizes.