Anyone Bought Into Keith Heddle's Sales Pitch?

$1.00? Somehow, DrewM, I just don't see anyone frothing at the bit to come forward and claim your prize.

I agree with you, though, that there is someone out there still who knew the processes and formulae used to make these hinges. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be stamp collectors as no one has ever attempted to recreate the product, even under a new name.

It sure would be nice to have a new source of those hinges, though, wouldn't it?

Has anyone come up with hinges like that used for post-it which does not damage the original gum behind mint stamps?

No, pennyblackie, but what a great idea. A post-it type adhesive has the potential of leaving stamps in MNH condition without messing with mounts. And I hate mounts. Contact 3M and sell them on the idea. It could open up a whole new market for them with their glue formula. And no licking. I wonder if it would have any deteriorating effects over time.

Stampman, Fold-O-Hinges from Harold Cohn, in Chicago, were just as good, but were they made by Dennison and repackaged? Also good were Universal Stamp Hinges and Easy-Mount Stamp Hinges, both from H.E. Harris in Boston, but were these made by Dennison, as well? Western Stamp and Coin Company put out a similar hinge, and claimed to be the manufacturer. I have packages of all of these.

Minkus and Grossman, two album manufacturers, also put out their own hinges, but not on the greenish glassine paper.

Dennison might have been THE brand, but there were many brands of hinges available during the 1960's and 70's. One thing the good ones seemed to have in common was that after you opened the package the hinges didn't begin to curl, as all the junk hinges coming from Germany and elsewhere seem to do these days. You would think the technologically advanced Germans could figure it out, after all, they were working on flying saucers in the 1930's and 40's. A laboratory should be able to analyze the composition of Dennison's glue.

As for Keith Heddle, with whom this discussion began, never heard of the guy.

Btw if any of you are into QE2 error stamps, SG is slashing prices. Look out for changes in their website.

Your all missing a few things in your discussion . First as stated above the glue on the Dennison Hinges has been around for many years .But it has to be something else that others were not doing .

The part is the application , Dennison Hinges glue was heated BEFORE it was applied,we all known heated glue will go on thinner . But here is were I think something else happens and I am guessing ,they applied two very thin layers of glue and possible the chemical makeup was different between these two layers and it is these two very thin layers made the hinge peelable ,now remember the German glue was applied so thick it accutualy made the hinges curl .

Now your starting to understand what was the reason nobody understood the difference in the peelabilty ,because it wasn't the horse made glue,but how it was used . If the glassine hinge was made a special way such as having wax added to the manufactoring of the tissue then the glue had a weaker holding power. But the glue also having two layers would seperate from each other leaving some on the page and breaking away from the glassine ,which is just the opposite of the torn pages when a German hinge is removed .

The idea that the glue was toxic is an urban legend and has no basis for being factual.

The theory of multiple, textured layers has been floating around for at least the last 12-15 years. While no one has yet proven or disproven this theory one thing is for sure; no one has come close to actually manufacturing a decent 'pealable' hinge. This theory is one of the most viable and reasonable explanations. It explains why those who purchased the original Dennison equipment and materials still were not able to reproduce a good hinge. Chances are that Dennison (or their material supplier) had a process, perhaps only known by those who ran the equipment, which made them pealable.
Don

Don ---I was using my experience of working during college . In the 1960's I worked at a box factory at Horner- Waldorf in Denver ,Colorado we made boxes for Monfort of Colorado a beef packing plant in Greeley Colorado . My job on Saturdays was to run the WAXER , a person had to know at what temperature to heat the 25lbs. blocks of wax and then you fed the made boxes {still flat but cut and printed } thru the waxer machine which had rollers that picked up the hot liquid wax and you hand feed the boxes thru that coated the inside of the meat boxes with wax .

I believe a glue machine at Dennison would work the same way.To put the glue on the glassine you had to know the tempeture of the cooker to apply the correct thickness .

If the "rat poison" story is a myth Don, I stand corrected. It is something I had heard many years ago from other "more learned" collectors. Well as far as I am concerned, even if it is incorrect that they did contain a minute percentage of "rat poison" in their composition the older hinges were definately easier to peel.

Someone mentioned animal glue as a possibility, and the ethical factor of animals was coming into effect about that time they stopped producing. To me the possibility of health concerns from that type of material not properly processed would be more understandable, and there probably are still some manufactures in this world that still use "animal" glue.

I am also without doubt that someone has already run an experiment in a lab with spectrometers on some old hinge gum to determine the material composition of the glue used. If someone did not, then I have some a chemist could use to anyalize.

Otherwise, if not animal, vegitable, or mineral, it must have been "magic."
What about pva? Just a thought.

Mike