A Vintage Hinge Question ..................

I concur but note there continues to be many reasons to favor the use of decent hinges. (They can be less time consuming and certainly are less a problem than mounts in some thin-papered, double sided albums.) In my opinion old style Dennison hinges remain one of the best investment in philately (originally sold for $0.25 per pack and now north of $20.00 per pack). Supply will continue to shrink and demand will stay high. Only thing that might impact this is if someone does indeed market a new, quality peelable hinge.
Don

I have 2 packs of Dennison's left. I have started cutting them in half to double the mileage. Anyone else do this?

I use Prinz hinges, but I always bisect them unless the stamps are very large. I don't have a problem with modern hinges, by the way, unless they arrive curled or scrunched up. You just need to be careful to dampen them very slightly.

Just to prove how old a curmudgeon I am, I personally believe that stamps look better when hinged in an album as opposed to mounts.

re.

" With the rise of global markets and the number of collectors in developing countries such as China and India ".

The market for stamp hinges in China & India is negligible as collectors there use stockbooks or mounts.

Pagoda

jarnick,

Stamps hinge mounted in albums have a quite appealing appearance. I have a few used stamps which I hinge mounted. First I tried Showgard with a black background but then you couldn't readily distinguish them from the unused stamps. Then I tried Showgards with a clear background. That was better. Mounting with hinges (vintage Dennisons) gave the best appearance.

Jack Kelley

The question I have is how much would one be willing to pay for a pack of them. I would assume that China could make them with the banned chemicals. Do you think that a million packs could be sold at $10.00 a package? With that kind of number it could pay.

A couple of years ago I bit the bullet and bought a case of 25 packs of Dennison's, if I recall correctly I paid about $12 per pack for them. I would pay up to $25 per pack now if I needed any.
Don

I have maybe half a pack of Dennisons left at the moment, and as of late I've reserved them for one purpose only: hinging low-value, previously hinged mint stamps. For NH and more expensive stamps in general (MH or used), I use clear mounts. For common used stamps, I use modern hinges. Dennisons are much better of course, but modern hinges aren't *that* bad if one is very careful to moisten them very lightly. Moisten them fully and they practically become welded to the stamp. Moisten them just barely and they come off without too much difficulty.

I'll also mention that I prefer the look of a hinged stamp to one in mounts as well. I put more expensive stamps in mounts for the extra protection as much as anything else. If they're in a mount, they're less likely to come loose from the page or get damaged by a careless turn of the page or a stray hand while working on that page, etc.

I certainly wouldn't make something in China if it's going to be licked. Personally I think there is* money to be made. Collectors pay more than $20 a pack on ebay. At say $12 a pack the margins would be very high. Not the basis for a business but could be a line within a larger portfolio.

Ronv - I cut the hinges in half when possible - typically for smaller definitives - so you are not the only frugal one here...

There is a thread on the other SCF that the APS is talking with a chemist at Penn State University about the hinging situation.

That is good news but the question will still be how many packs can you sell.

I really have no clue how many packs of hinges of all types are sold worldwide in a year. I'd guess anywhere between a few tens of thousands to a few hundred thousand, but that's pure speculation, it could be even higher or lower. But, whatever the number is, a truly peelable hinge sold at a competitive price would take over a large share of the market pretty quickly, assuming it was widely enough available. Initially they could be sold at a substantial premium which would help recoup some of the development costs, but ideally they'd be priced fairly close to modern hinges at some point. Even if they can't replicate Dennison hinges, I'd think significant improvements could be made over today's hinges.

What is "the other SCF"?