Storing Embossed Gold Foil Stamps

Hi all.

I'm after a bit of advice. I have a few of the gold foil stamps which look like coins - the sort issued by Tonga, Sharjah, Umm Al Qiwain etc. They're also embossed.

I'm wondering what the best way to store them is? I'd like to put them on paper album pages along with the rest of the collection, using stamp hinges. Is it safe to do that, or would the pressure/friction of the album pages cause damage in the long term?

How do other collectors keep theirs?

Thanks in advance.

The few that I have I keep in stockbooks. I haven't noticed any issues with that method. For most of these types of issues, it would take a great deal of pressure to actually press the design out, for example, although I can see where the raised parts of the design might be more susceptible to friction. I'd think hinging them would be OK in most circumstances, with the usual caveats about hinging in general. You could potentially use Vario sheets as the clear sheets actually blend in fairly well within a printed album.

I have a couple of these from Ethiopia, and they sit in Hawid/Vario mounts inside Prinz stock sheets. This is just a precaution against surface rubbing.

I have one. I keep it in the original cardboard mailing envelope I received it in.


-IBFS

They store OK in albums in mounts (though given time, in a thickly packed album, they can make a visible impression on the facing page -- so you might want to include a blank page or two before these stamps!) If you want to use hinges, you may need to use two or three per stamp (especially for the larger stamps). They are much heavier than ordinary stamps.

These, the thick lenticulated stamps, and some of the ones made out of weird material (wood, plastic, cloth, etc.) tend to be the more difficult for my economical system (102 cards and stock pages). I use glassine envelopes for these problem children.

One way to protect them against rubbing would be to create some space between their page and the facing/preceding page.

One way to do that would be to cut card stock strips - say, one centimeter or one-half-inch wide - and glue these to the edges of their page, or to the edges of the back of the facing/preceding page.

Another way would be to simply cut a mask (holes) into a whole page of card stock, and insert it into your album.

Kinda depends on how you balance protection vs aesthetic uniformity.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey