Mounting Stamp Mounts.

I buy collections, estate and auction lots from time to time. I pull out what I want for my own collection and eventually sell the rest.

When removing stamps from mounts or reprinting a page of my own I often lamented not being able to cleanly or easily remove the mounts too.

Having a large multi-volume collection, I have a small fortune invested in mounts for my mint and more fragile stamps.

A while ago I was reading a post or article, can't recall where but the person was mounting their mounts with hinges. At first this though this was crazy but the more I thought about it, I couldn't think of a reason that it wouldn't work, at least for single sided album pages. I have yet to see this method in use in other collections that I have bought or looked at.

I've been doing this for some of my stamps. The larger and heavier mounts requires multiple hinges. The reason this came to mind this morning was that I had to reprint several pages and they had the mounts hinged on them. It was easy to remove the mounts and reattach them to the re-printed page.

I have become a fan of this method. Am I being crazy, cheap or do any of you do this too?

I've seen this in quite a few collections I've bought. I just use a small dab of glue-stick at the centre of the mount - somewhat less adhesion, but easy to remove. The bane of trying to reuse mounts from collections is the heavy use of water or glue at the base of the mount - or all over.

That is my method too. 95% of the time they snap right off.

Dan

The hinge+mount will make your album fatter (it might not seem like much, but iver many pages it will add up). Using both also costs more. And it will be very difficult to get the stamp out if the mount without the hinge coming off the page should you or a perspective buyer want to get the stamp out.

You might try using removable double-sided tape to hold mounts on album pages. Be sure it's "removable". I use this method for holding even larger mounts (with souvenir sheets, for example), and it works well. Or it has worked well for the last few months, anyway. I guess I'll see how this works in the long run. As with any method, only time will tell. I haven't found hinges hold mounts on album pages very well. And as I turn the page, stamps in mounts held only by hinges tend to flap around a lot. That's a lot of extra weight for a simple hinge to hold well.

I have 25+ three ring binders (I make my own pages) and all my stamps, mint, used, multiples, etc. are in mounts and the mount are hinged to the pages. I've re-worked page formats 2-3 times and its easy to move hinge mounted items from format to format.

I have seen this multiple times on collections I have bought. I am always amazed that it works - water-soluble adhesive on plastic mounts just seems like it shouldn't work. I must admit, though, that when I have seen this done, the stamps/mounts are where they ought to be.

All that said, I still worry that it won't work for me, so I use a tiny dab of glue stick to affix my mounts. That seems to work, too. And I worry less, too - although that may be unwarranted.

I like the glue stick idea too. Might give that a try too.

Eyeonwall: It does add some thickness but not really that much, plus I have the advantage of using binders that I have plenty of and can expand the album(s) at will. I have not had any trouble accessing the stamp and only hinge the top portion of the mount. On a regular issue I have no problem with one hinge. On a commemorative 40x25+ I use two, one in each upper corner horizontally or one above the other for verticle. And on larger I use as many as it requires. The cost of hinges is very little compared to mounts so I think in the long run hinges (or glue) can easily save a little money and effort.

DrewM: I thought about double sided tape but all the ones I've looked at are difficult to get off the paper. The advantage with a hinge is I just cut the hinge fold with a 909 tong easy.

I have always used hinges with mounts - it works very well.

If I'm fairly positive an album page / stamp position will be permanent I'll typically moisten and use the mount's adhesive. However, if I anticipate that an album page or section will be reorganized in the future I'll hinge the mount to the page. I think I learned of doing that on this forum about 3 years ago, and it has worked well for me for singles. For strips or blocks I'll use more than 1 hinge. I only use mounts for mint and fragile stamps, everything else is hinged.

I have used removable tape (Scotch Brand) to affix glassines to an album page but found that they sometimes came loose after several months. For this now I use removable Glue Dots.

Hinging mounts is working well but I am now intrigued to try the glue stick idea.

Nothing works better for me than the glue stick.

I bought a glue stick today to try with my mounts. I've got to say it works pretty good. The task now is to try various amounts of the glue stick and where on the mount it works best.
Joanne

A collection I purchased used hinges for all mounts. Aside from leaving a slight hinge mark on the page, it is awfully convenient and doesn't tear the page when removing. It also allows the mounts to all be reused.

The disadvantage is the mounts "hang". So when flipping pages, they sort of hang down a bit. The cellophane (or whatever it is) divider pages can help a bit with this. Interestingly, the stamps don't often come out of the mounts or move around as much as I would have guessed. I also find that when I was moving mounts around in these books, I rehinged the mounts and found it somewhat convenient as there was no "mess", no waiting for them to dry to ensure a blip of water got inside the mount, etc etc.

As for glue sticks, do these cause any damage or does the glue lose its hold over the years? Often wondered about either of those effects but I have no experience with it so I'm definitely curious.

I should say that, when I returned to stamp collecting a few years ago, mounts were a new thing for me - they hadn't crossed my path as a child. When discovering them, I didn't even realise that they could be applied with water, so I've never used anything but a Pritt stick. They seem to hold up pretty well. Will they damage the album? In my experience, only you apply too much or if the glue-stick is getting gunky.

I have been satisfied with using a glue stick (Elmer's Craft Bond Repositionable) to attach mounts to pages. The glue stick is applied to a small area on the page then attach mount. You have time to adjust the mount position.

I use a glue pen for attaching my mounts. It only needs a very small amount, two or three light dabs on the top of the mount away from the edges. Be warned, you will not be able to move the mount after the glue dries which is quick. I don't have a need to move the mount once it mounted to the page.

This is the glue pen I use.