How Do You Display Certs For Your Prized Stamps?

My brother's collection is in Scott Platinum albums, and I have been puzzling about how to display the few certs he has.

Ideally the cert would be next to its stamp, but I haven't come up with a good solution.

So how do you display your certs? Or do you keep your certs in a separate album, like those made for stock certificates?

TIA

Burnside

I keep mine in a file cabinet in a file, organized by Scott #, right next to the files of purchase records (which I tend to call acquisitions). A spreadsheet of acquisitions gives a form of searchable and sortable index to everything, with or without a cert.

I'd like to say I am faithful about backing it all up with scans in the cloud, but I am behind in batch processing of this....

I hope I never need it for insurance, but that is one concern.
And as folks in another thread have been discussing, I hope this would make it a bit easier to dispose of it all when I am no longer concerned. So they're with the acquisitions records. After all, quite a few acquisitions -- including some I dearly love -- are of higher dollar value than things for which I have certs.

I keep my certs in Scott number order in plastic page protectors in binders. If a stamp has multiple certs those certs are kept in the same sleeve. If a stamp gets a new cert I just add it to the sleeve. As with Jleb1979 I keep my receipts in separate binders. All certs and receipts as well as stamp scans are scanned and electronically stored. All cert information is in Excel spreadsheets.

As I accumulate more I strongly suspect I will migrate to a binder of page protecting pockets like yours, Rogdcam. That does sound like a better solution for these variable pieces of paper than my hanging folder of them.

I punched holes in one of those clear plastic page protectors (https://www.avery.com/products/shee...ors/75540)so I could put it at the back of my album and I put all of the certs for items in that album in the pocket. When I put an item on an exhibit page, I put the cert for the item in the mylar sleeve behind the page. That way, the item and the cert are never more than a few inches apart.

I discovered that a Franklin Day Planner binder from the 1990s had the exact size and ring spacing to accommodate the punched clear vinyl sleeves that Kelleher and others had been sending me certs in. So that binder became my album, and I found a pack of the sleeves on Amazon. They are in catalogue number order as rogdcam does.

I do the same as Chip. In those albums that have posts, like my old Scott National, I used one of the fly sheets as a template to cut the correct opening (with a scalpel) in the protector and it fits right in. I prefer having the certs with my albums or exhibits so they are always quick to retrieve (as opposed to having to flip thru a stack of them to find the one I want only to have it end up back with the album where the stamp is).

I make a pocket out of a manila file folder, seal it on 3 sides, leaving the top side open, then use a hole punch to match the hole spacing for an album. I put a pocket page at the back of each album and keep all certificates for stamps in that album in the pocket. On my album pages I make a small pencil notation under the stamp that the stamp has a certificate. This way the certificates stay in the same album as the stamps.

I keep my certificates in three file folders, with pockets. Two of the folders contain Portuguese colonial certs and are filed in the backs of those albums. The second album runs Mozambique through Zambesia; and that album has all the Portuguese India certs. The other colonial certs folder is with the Portugal-Madeira album. I use large, medium-duty, rubber bands to gently hold everything together.

The third folder contains miscellaneous certificates from other countries; mostly Mexico & Poland; and is filed, upright, in the album cabinet. I have no interest in exhibiting, so no worries about keeping certs with exhibit material. Like restoman, I note, in pencil, on the colonial album pages which stamps have certs (ISPP, APS, J. Miranda da Mota, etc). I do the same notation for the certificates from other countries, on those pages.

I keep mine in separate half size binders, in half size page protectors, in order by Scott number.

Getting back to the group about my solution for displaying certs.

First, I called Brookman up in Vancouver, WA and found that they did not stock pages (Scott Platinum and Lighthouse) or albums suitable for displaying certs. So they weren't as helpful as you all.

So I packed some document holders and a paper punch with me when I visited my brother this weekend past.

What we did was punch clear document holders to fit the 13 ring Platinum and Lighthouse Excel binders. Then, using photo corner mounts, mounted the certs on 110 pound white card stock. Slipped the card-stock-mounted certs into the document holders. Result is a reasonably centered and neat appearing certificate which stays put. Of course, the document holders can be moved anywhere in the album, but for now the certs are displayed next to the stamp they refer to.

FWIW, since many of you said how you track things, I keep purchase invoices as .pdf files and hard copies. I run two excel files--one for inventory and one for finance tracking. Some information is common to both files, like cert issuer and cert number, so if one file gets corrupted, I've got the other for back up. That and every once in a while I copy both to an SDHC card, although I have a propensity to loose those.

Thanks all for your input.

Burnside

Mine are in file folders.

I don't. That's because I don't collect certificates, I collect stamps. I just put them into a file folder separate from all my albums. It would be possible, though I don't do this, to write under each stamp the word "certificate" to remind anyone that a certificate exists for that stamp. Looking through an album of beautiful stamps only to have them interrupted by certificates I would find annoying. It's a stamp album, not a "look at how I've certified these stamps" album which would be a bit like hanging a framed appraiser's report next to a beautiful work of art. That the painting is hanging on the wall means it's most likely legitimate. Same with stamps in an album. .

I keep my limited number of certs in a folder in a drawer. My dad mounts them in the album on left side page. It adds bulk to the album but they are together.