Clear Background Or Black Background

Only mount your higher priced stamps at $5.00 or more. I prefer the clear mounts because they mix better with my white pages than the black mounts.

@docgfd,

Clear mounts on black quadrille pages sounds amazing and best of both worlds. I guess it would look like a black Vario page but neater.

Do they actually make black quadrille pages? It gets me wondering if it would be possible to print album pages on black paper with white ink.

tsmatx - I was aware of black quadrille pages but had never tried them before now. I asked a similar question recently and everything you need to know can be had by following this thread on this site:

https://goscf.com/t/76340

Be sure to follow the link GeoffHa provides of scans of his black pages (you'll need to scroll down to get to them) and you'll see how eye-popping this presentation can be.

I started using black mounts as a teenager 50+ years ago. However, at that age it was all about getting the stamps into an album as quickly as possible. Once I was in my 30s and 40s, the look of the rushed mounting no longer pleased me and the fact that I could not see the information below the mount in order to build my database of what I had made me switch to clear mounts.

After doing that for several years I found that the clear mounts had their own issues. As someone else pointed out, you have to be very careful with clear mounts not picking up dust, lint, hair, etc. which they may pick up when moistened and before placing it on the page. Nothing like having a nice stamp centred in a clear mount with a piece of lint stuck down right beside it. Removing the mount will undoubtedly damage the page and that damage is next to impossible to hide with a clear mount.

That combined with my opinion that stamps do not "pop" like they do with a black background made me go back to black mounts and I am now in the process of replacing all of the clear mounts with black ones.

Clear for me. While for any single stamp, cover, block, etc black does look nice, I can't get past how terrible a whole page of black mounts on white or cream paper appears to me. And I won't even go into sloppy cutting, or crooked placement.

Honestly, I use preprinted, premounted pages for pretty much everything. Whatever doesn't fit, or areas for which I can't find that, I revert to DIY, and clear. A collection is as much about its presentation as contents.

Hinges are anathema to me. Hate them and won't ever use them, for anything. IMO, if the stamp or piece is worth having in one's collection to begin with, it's worth being put in a real mount.

Black for me, for same reasons as above. I also use scissors with the stamp in the mount, haven't hit anything ever. I think a key here is to get GOOD scissors. Mine are 'Gingher'. My bride is a quilter and suggested these as her favorite. They only cut mounts. I have others for any other use. Have had them many years, no problem. They are not large, nor heavy, but are well machined.

Boxcar, what model/size do you use? Been using Fiskars shears and they work well, up until about the 44 mm and greater mounts and then they seem to leave a little tab in the center sometimes.

Andyrich, I think your problem with the "tab" is a matter of physics. The larger mounts tend to bend as you cut.

One solution might be to put a scrap of paper in the mount before you cut. This would keep it from flexing.

I much prefer the black, split-back mounts - Scott or Prinz.

That said, my wife is a dedicated quilter. She uses a rotary cutter on a green OLFA Rotary Mat to cut all of her fabrics. These are inexpensive and can obtained at most fabric stores. The mats have a printed grid, so getting a perfect 90° angle is simple. The mats come in many sizes, but I find that the 17 x 22 inch fits my desk easily, and no mount is larger than that. I just lay the mount on the grid and cut it to size with the rotary cutter (those darn things are VERY SHARP; don't get careless). SIMPLE.

Andyrich, from the fulcrum nut to the tip is 3 1/4 inches. They are not long, good for up to maybe a 40-42 mm mount. Larger stuff like S/S and multiples go in stock pages, so I seldom have need for much larger. In the event I sometimes use a metal straight edge and a fresh exacto #11 blade and handle. That makes a nice controlled cut. I find the rule sufficient to keep things "plumb".

Black. I want to see the perforations. I am perplexed by issues folks have with cutting them straight and mounting them square. I use a stamp mount cutter. I mount every stamp from a 3c commemorative to a C3a (if I had one) the same way. If I collected large numbers of world-wide used stamps, I'd go with hinges, though. And I'd use clear mounts for the odd "valuable" stamp in a collection of lots of low-value stamps.

I do, too, Philazilla, use a stamp mount cutter. It is ruled along one side so you can make the same size mounts every time. It has a 'springy hold-down thing' (I have no idea what it is really called) to hold the mount down flat while making the cut, which eliminates the uneven cuts between bottom piece (black) and top piece (clear). It will cut all but the absolute largest mounts. I am a cheapskate at heart, but the money spent on this tool is some of the best money I've spent. If I have to cut anything too big for the cutter (very rare), I use a metal ruler and hold the mount down tight to the cutting surface and use an X-Acto knife. The ruler acts similarly to the 'springy hold-down thing' on the mount cutter. I find the mount cutter easier to use, more accurate, safer, and just plain more convenient than the ruler and X-Acto. It is worlds better than scissors - scissors can cut pretty close to square and pretty close to straight, but the cutter cuts perfectly square and perfectly straight. The 'springy hold-down thing' prevents 'mis-registration' between the two layers of the mount - that 'mis-registration' was always my biggest problem with scissors. Again, carefully cutting with scissors might mostly prevent 'mis-registration', but the cutter prevents it 100%.

Right tool for the job.

Here is a Scott album using black mounts. The page was likely designed for hinged. Given the value of the lower series, it should be presented on a separate page by Scott.

I use a Fiskars Sure Cut rotary cutter for mounts and they come out just fine. The reason that I use clear is because it is extremely difficult to apply the mounts in perfect parade form on the pages especially as the album fills up and pages are not lying perfectly flat. I could remove the page to a table but that would get really time consuming. No matter how much layout and care I took when placing mounts on page there were always "sins" when finished and once the adhesive sets it is a done deal. I had my US collection in a Schaubek hingeless (clear mounts) and did not like the presentation and so moved it to black mounts in a National. Loved the stamp on black contrast for perfs and colors but the nit quite perfect mounts popped against the page as well and distracted me.

I guess it is all in what an individual can tolerate for deviation from a linear and squared away presentation.

Personally, I like clear mounts on my Scott pages.