Hinging Cancel To Order Stamps

I'm not a fan of CTO's but I have several sets of them … some came in used albums I purchased, others I have no idea why or how I have them, they are not something I would buy.

While I'm not a dedicated WW collector I have the philosophy that if I have a stamp I'll mount it an album.

It somehow bothers me to hinge "mint gum" which many of the CTO's have, some are un-gummed or without gum. On the other hand they are obviously not mint stamps and not high value … I'd rather not use a mount that costs as much or more than the value of the stamp. I assume I'm not lowering their value by hinging them onto the album page? What is common practice? Thank you.

I'd hinge them - as I'm happy to hinge most stamps.

hinge away, I hinge all mine as well

There are indeed gum fanatics that insist that even their CTOs should be left never hinged -- you will sometimes see listings for stamps as "CTO full NH original gum".

Fact is, the value of most stamps (CTO or mint) isn't going to be meaningfully affected by a hinge mark, except in retail environments. Most modern mint stuff sells as discount postage, most CTOs sell as bulk stamps, collections often sell at auction on the assumption everything is hinged, even if it's all in mounts (as you often can't inspect every single good unused stamp, you can only spot check at best).

At this point I typically only mount stamps for displays or exhibits, but when I do I use black mounts for everything -- you can harvest those from old collections, and use hinges (or glue stick, or some other light adhesive) to affix them to the pages, and it's quite inexpensive that way. Buying mounts new, like you indicate, will cost substantially more than many stamps are worth.

While I consider myself a general worldwide collector I tend to be of two minds on CTOs. Part of me knows they aren't postally used and is annoyed at having them gummed. I once considered simply soaking the gum off the back but found that too time consuming when I tried it with some common Czech stamps from the 1960s.

Since I'm now moving forward with mounting my collection on Steiner pages I've decided that I will mount anything in the 1840 - 1940 range and then approach newer items on a case by case basis. The sheer number of CTOs means I will most likely use hinges to avoid the excess cost mounts would incur.

Dale

I have a Russia collection in three Scott albums almost complete to 1992. About 90% of the stamps are CTO and the remaining mint were previously hinged. With a few exceptions every stamp in those albums is hinged. The Souvenir sheets are mounted with corners. There is no way on earth I would ever have time to cut mounts for all of those and then there'd be the issue of album bulge. It's an attractive collection I love looking at frequently.

Happy hinging !!!! (which reflects how I've always handled CTOs)

Hinge

The only CTOs I wouldnt hinge would be certain rather more valuable stamps -- China Cultural revolution era, earlier Russia for example -- as they could earn some serious cash should I eventually sell them on.
But for most of them the question is moot, as they are worth so little even in pristine never-hinged condition.