Vintage Hinges- A Question

I am wondering if anyone else has noticed that some 'vintage' hinges sold on ebay for big bucks are- bluntly- sort of a ripoff?

I have three packs of Harco 'Fold-O-Hinges' purchased at various times over the past year from ebay vendors. They all seem to lack adhesive quality. They do not stick to the stamp and often to the page. I wonder if there is something in the gum formula used in these that breaks down over time? It's way too late for me to contact the vendors, I've lost track of who I bought the bad packs from anyway. (a few packs were good).

I have never bought a bad pack of Dennisons. Comments welcome.

If they're unopened packs, the seller wouldn't be able to verify if the gum had gone bad or if maybe they were a bad batch to begin with. I'm no chemist, but I do believe the gum would probably lose some effectiveness over time, if nothing else due to fluctuations in temperature and humidity.

Yeah I know- I do not blame the seller- it's a lotto so far as what you get.

I just bought a lot of three 1000@ packs of H.E. Harris vintage folded hinges for about $15. I have found those are as good as Dennisons and less expensive.

It's important to note that there were different qualities of Fold-O-Hinges depending on the date of manufacture ... bottom line: the newer ones were not as good as the older ones, which is why the newer ones never caught on as a reasonable substitute for Dennison:




http://digital.ipcprintservices.com...article.html

As I understand it, the earlier Cohn Fold-O-Hinges were good; the newer products (using the Texas address on the envelopes) were less desirable.

I just rechecked- I have two packs left of the Foldo hinges. Both have the 'Chicago' address, nothing about Texas. I never felt these were really very old, the envelope paper looks new. What I bought may be just some total knockoffs. I have heard that some ebay vendors are selling crummy hinges repackaged in fake Dennison envelopes. If there's a buck to be made someone will figure how to do it.

I have a few packages of Harold Cohn's Fold-O-Hinges bought from a bricks-and-mortar stamp store. Note the arrow highlighting the date (R) 1955 -- although I believe these were actually produced later, probably in the mid-1960s, thus explaining the 5-digit ZIP Code for Chicago. Those were the (supposedly better) hinges than the more recent ones, although I don't know how they weathered the years (good or bad) as I haven't opened the package yet!

I have been very impressed with the 1955 Fold O Hinges. They have been equal to Dennison in all respects. I did get one bad bag of Dennisons, but I think it was an opened bag with completely different hinges.

Both my packages say '1955'.

Apparently I just had bad luck and bought duds. Lesson learned, next time try them right away- probably wouldn't ask for a refund but could have alerted the seller. They may have gotten stuck with some crummy old stock on these.

WT1, I have the very same package of Fold-o-hinges. Big disappointment. While my previous package had better fold-o-hinges, this package contains something very similar to the last Prinz's I had. Garbage.

It occurred to me, what with the cost of vintage hinges these days, that the old adage about those using mounts ("the mount is worth more than the stamp inside it, in many cases") now applies pretty much to hinges as well????

Family,

I use Dennison's exclusively. They appear occasionally on ebay and they are quite expensive. My three packages show "1000 hinges for $.25" "1000 for $.29", and 1000 with no price given. All three packages that I possess have a part number "48-064" and show Framingham, Mass with the zip code.

Does anybody know when these hinges were made?

Thanks,
Jack Kelley

on the other hand my old Dennisons are still perfect. It's the red white & blue envelope, No. 48-064 on the front, Mass. zip code address on the back. Must be 70's.

My favorite hinges were the Rapkin Peerless unfolded hinges since they were very peelable hinges.

Same here, I bought several packs of Foldo's and Dennison's off of ebay, I had two out of about 10 that had a mishmash of different hinges in what appeared to be sealed packs, always someone out there with a scam.The Foldo's dated 1955 are top notch hinges in my opinion.The later "Unitrade" Foldo's are terrible.

I have found that the Texas-made Fold-O-Hinges tend to not stick well while the older Dennison's (1000 for 25 cents or 29 cents) work just fine.

I still have a mostly full package of Dennison's hinges (price $.83) that I bought back around 1978 during a short period as an adult collector. Since I have reactivated my interest in my retirement, when the time comes to reload is there any particular vendor on ebay that you would recommend?


Terry