Stamp Hinge Brands And Quality

What a fabulous post!
Thanks Donald, for sharing your experience, fascinating.

Wage incentives - application at
Dennison Manufacturing Company. 1951
Author Dan Bradley Armstrong.

HB,
sent an email to Potomac Supplies to import Davo hinges.
No reply, perhaps due to the season.

Potomac Supplies accepts orders from the US and Canada only.

Randy

Prophila. Ships to Australia? DAVO stamp hinges.

https://www.prophila.com/prod_detai...830241637299

https://www.prophila.com/Versandbed...1637299.html

Rod - I can't answer your questions, not least because I don't move in the world of expensive hinges! There was a long discussion about the topic on Stampboards, in which, from memory, Mr S set out the advantages of later Rapkin packaging, which seems to have addressed the problem of hinges becoming glued together in the tins. Is there a market for a hinge that reproduces the characteristics and quality of hinges from sixty years ago? Doubtless. Is it a commercial proposition in a world where the emphasis lies on selling Hawid-type mounts, stock-pages and stock-books? Que sais-je?

redwoodrandy, shipping for an order of €10 to €19.99 from prophila is €44.99 for Australia or the US, but free if over €250. Nice. They don't want smaller orders from overseas.

rod222, mail me if other sources continue to be in the stratosphere.

Thanks Randy, yes, but shipping charges are too high
$85 AUD for a packet of Davo Hinges
(I paid that amount for 5Kg of Stamp Mounts from Canada)

Thank you HB, very neighbourly,
I can get here from Bexley stamps $8 or near to,
I'll buy one packet for testing.

Since Davo hinges seem to be of interest here, for what it's worth, I've used them. They perform exactly like every other modern hinge, no better, no worse. They are definitely not the Holy Grail of hingedom. I wouldn't spend time or money trying to get them shipped. It's been posted already in this thread that "Prinz, a German company known for quality products, is currently the only hinge manufacturer in the world. (Hinges may be repackaged and sold under a different name, but every hinge on the market today is made by Prinz.)". This is on the Mystic Stamp website (perhaps because they've received so many of the same questions about "which hinge is better?"). The answer clearly is that among today's hinges, no hinge is better since they're all the same hinge.

I know this is true because I've purchased and tested every major brand of stamp hinges currently sold. Or I think I have, anyway. Believe me when I say this -- they all adhere well, they all hold stamps on the page well, and they all remove from the page and the back of stamps very badly. Every single one of them. No exceptions. They all leave hinge residue, and they all tend to thin the stamps they're attached to. Using less moisture may help a little, but not much. This is probably the strongest argument for using stamp mounts that I can think of, and I'm not a big fan of stamp mounts.

As for older hinges, yes, very definitely they were much, much better. The passage of time does not always bring progress. Sometimes things get worse. This small development, interesting only to stamp collectors and unknown to nearly anyone else, is I guess one of those ways.

I have heard that the formula contained glue made from horses which became illegal to use and is why it is impossible to reproduce it today. Anyone know if that is true?

Absolutely not true about the horses. I have tracked that rumor for years and found no factual evidence. Pure speculation started on one site and picked up and erroneously repeated forever.

That's good. It means that some chemist with the goal of getting rich by cornering the stamp hinge market should be able to break down the chemicals in a Dennison hinge and reproduce it.

Hinged 40 stamps yesterday using Prinz, and my method (Very light moisture)
ALL peeled lovely off the stamps, not as fluid as Dennison, but nonetheless,
was just fine.
One needs patience and the art of hinging to be successful with these modern fellas.
Anything more than "tacky" and the stamps will fuse.

According to wikipedia some glue is still made from animals, including horses, for specific purposes such as violins, but for the most part has been replaced by synthetic glues which have better properties for general use. So I guess it would still be available for hinges. This further debunks the idea that it is the key to the Dennison hinge.

Synthetic glues were widely available all through the Dennison hinge era.