My First Collection Assembly In A Album, Wurttemberg

Some of you may remember my post when I got the 1938 Schwaneberger Deutschland Album, pretty incomplete at the time. I've been adding pretty regularly to it and managed to pickup a lot of nice wurttemberg stamps. This is to show the progress. As stated this is the first actual album I'm working on. Most of my collections are in stock books. If you see me doing anything silly please call me out on it. Much appreciation in advance!
Some pages were missing from the album when I received it so I'll be attempting to track down the best fit.

Glad you're enjoying yourself. I'd think twice about using an old album that has deteriorating paper. And the stamps that appear to be wrapped and taped should be freed from their prison!

Geooff- so the wrapped and taped stamps are actually old-school crystal mounts holding unhinged mint stamps. I do not know much about crystal and whether or not they damage stamps. The album pages themselves are in pretty nice shape minus the binding which was completely apart when I got it and since I have completely redone the binding. It seems to be a very special album since I haven't ever seen another and fellows in my stamp club told me it was a collectible in itself. I should have posted pics of the album too. Here they are.

Crystal mounts are terrible in every respect. Get the stamps out of those mounts ASAP.

My position would be to rescue all the stamps from this album and rehome them into something more modern and safe. Nothing good will come of keeping the stamps in this album, or continuing to add to it.

Schwaneberger albums appear regularly at auction - in Europe at least. Older albums are often attractive, and the bindings in particular are usually far superior to modern offerings, but the pages are usually toned or worse, and have the potential to damage the stamps. You can get good looking and practical German states albums if you can/want to blow a little cash.

https://www.schaubek.de/Schaubek-La...erman-States

Thanks for the great info guys, I definitely want to preserve the collection for a long time. I'm hoping to pass them on to family. I do love the look of a nice album. I'll check the link above. And the stamps that went into the crystal strips yesterday will be out today! Scouts promise! Does any one have a favorite? I collect german states and Germany to the end of ww1. Price doesn't matter

Another question regarding the hinged mint stamps. When taking them out of this album should I remove the hinge completely and go completely hinges or cut the hinge with my tweezers and re-hnge onto the old hinge left on the stamp? I'm assuming a hingless album would be the ticket.

I'd gently remove the stamp with the hinge attached. Then you can see if the hinge is readily peelable or should be left in place with the projecting part removed. If you can be bothered, you could soak off the old hinges.

Most of the German companies will produce printed albums. I've used Schaubek in the past - I prefer their cloth binders to Lighthouse's plastic efforts, and the pages are good quality.

Can't go wrong with Schaubek (see link above), SAFE (https://www.safepub.com/stamp-colle...bum-pages/), Lighthouse (https://www.lighthouse.us/collect-s...1849-1945/), or KABE (https://www.lighthouse.us/collect-s...1849-1945/).

I'll leave others to discuss the merits of removing (or not) hinges.

Thanks everyone. I think I'll pick up the safe albums. I'm assuming the german states doesn't include wurttemberg and Bavaria since they have separate ones for those. Looks like I'll be getting all 3

Personally, I use long, pointed tongs for everything, except removing hinged stamps. For that, I use spade tips, and run them up the side of the stamp until I hit the hinge fold, and then close them and slowly lift straight up, maybe with a slight pull down. I've never lost a stamp to that procedure.

At that point, you have a stamp with an attached, folded hinge, and you can go from there. Clip it, pull it, soak it. You need a quiver of options for these situations, depending on what you find.

I'll give that a shot, usually I use my spade tongs and slide to the hinge like you state but then I cut the hinge. Usually I'm just taking them out of albums from lots I have gotten. This time I would indeed like to be able to have the whole hing like you state so when I soak them I have something to pull. Appreciate the advice cjd!

The biggest issue with Crystal Mounts is that they shrink as they age, and it's difficult to get the resulting crinkles out of the stamp once they have been squashed...

Crystal mounts should be avoided. They do things as they age. Many collectors used to use a bit of Scotch Tape at the sides of the mount to hold it closed. The adhesive on the tape would react with the mount and become gooey. It also seeped through the mount and would brown over time, invariably leaving little brown marks on the sides of every stamp in the collection. To me, that's the worst side of Crystal Mounts. Aside from that, as said earlier, they don't age well - they don't seem to be stable.

As for removing the stamps from the album - one thing to be mindful of is that many albums from this era have fragile paper. Removing a stamp+hinge from the album often thins or tears the album paper. If you want to preserve the album, this is something to remember!

Have you ever seen the black Scott mounts? Or Showgard? There are a few companies that make black-backed mounts where you slip the stamp into the mount and there's no need for hinges. The mount then 'mounts' to the album page. Many people like the black backing since it frames the stamp. Many of these companies make the same type of mount, but in 'clear'. They are actually a bit translucent, rather than crystal clear, but once mounted, they look quite clear.

Remounting everything would be a project. But isn't that why we are stamp collectors???

One potentially useful quality of the Safe/Lindner-type albums is that you can place the mint copy in the mounting strip provided, and, if you wish, mount the used stamp over the illustration beneath. I do find them rather sterile-looking albums, though.

Also, if you are in Europe, you might find the PRinz mounts easier to source than Scott. They are the same thing, jointly marketed under both brands.