Mounting Of Covers

What do you do to mount covers in your album? Do you just hinge them to the page? Vario pages?

Vario pages, clear so that both front and back can be seen. For normal size covers, I use 2-row pages, then make a blank page (Steiner) with basic data at the top (type of stamps, origin and destination, year sent, Scott numbers if stamped) so that it shows through the clear Vario page above the two covers. With folded lettersheets stamped or stampless and with any cover that has a letter inside, I scan the text inside along with front and back, then print out the scans and punch them for 3-hole binder, and place them behind the blank Steiner identification page.

That way the contents of the letter can be read without taking the cover out and unfolding and refolding it. Standard US letter-size stationery rarely fits inside a single page Vario page, so I've largely given up on unfolding letters and putting them into the Vario page so that the text itself can be read. If the contents of a cover or a folded lettersheet happens to be small enough and there's only one or two pages, I may unfold it and put it in a single-row page.

Some covers are so small that they would fit into a 3-row or even 4-row Vario page but I've found it's better to use 2-row because when a (thick) cover barely fits inside a 3-row slot, it will often work it's way up out of the slot over time. I want a generous space in the slot so that the cover stays securely in it. For most US covers, a 2-row slot is fine.

I use small clear corner mounts, two per cover (opposite corners) two cover per page. On 65 lbs card, natural color, and slip that page inside a top loading page protector. Covers stay in place. I also like to print old photos of the orignating town if I can find one of the same era as the covers on the back of the preceding page, so that when I open my cover album to the Cuffey's Cove page I see the photo of the town as it looked when the covers were mailed. A continuous work in progress.

If you look at the top left and bottom right corners you can see the triangular mounts, and the card stock behind the cover. These two photos are on the back of a preceding page and face these two covers.

I go to my local photography (camera) store and pick out inexpensive 3-ring photo album binders and clear bi-directional pocket pages to hold my post cards and covers. Since you are in the US, you may find decent selections of photo albums and page inserts at a wide variety of stores such as WalMart, Staples, Office Depot, Target, etc.

thanks for the feed back everyone. Leaning towards vario pages or the corner mounts.

Corner mounts leave indentations on the corners of covers.
There are several cover albums available which are nice

I personally don't think Vario type page hold covers well. Cover are often too thick for them.

You can find 2 and 3 pocket pages are available at some sport card shops that are similar to the pages to hold baseball cards and will fit 3 ring binders. About 50 cents per page or less.

Scott makes cover size mounts for album pages.
Best place for Scott Mounts is at www.globalstamps.com

Use a photo album with 100+ plastic inserts so you can see both sides of the cover. Corner mounts may damage the edges of covers over time.

As a long time buyer and seller I have seen a zillion (even more in metric) FDCs and other covers that had been hinged or attached to albums (even by scotch time!) - and I must say those "solutions" always wreck the cover for resale or sharply reduce selling price.

I agree with CanadaStamp as I have been selling old covers for a long time to and I always hate seeing covers with hinge remants or creased / torn corners from corner mounts. It decrases the value of the cover once it has damage.