Why Are Modern Stamp Hinges Bad?

American Philatelist published an article in the Dec 2017 issue on hinge chemistry. The APS had the Chemistry Department at Pennsylvania State University analyze several hinge brands including vintage Dennison's. The Dennison hinges, as well as some others, use dextrin as the adhesive.

I, for one, am pleased that no horses were injured.#128578;

Don
I've not been able to learn the name of the chemicals involved either. However, it is my understanding that the danger was only in the manufacturing process and there was no carcinogenic effect in the product to affect the end user.

When I was a kid, I used hinges. Very reliable, very forgiving. After half a century, I return to collecting. I can't get hinges to work to save my soul. I'm still using the same album I used as a kid, and all my hinged stamps are neatly there from 50 or 60 years ago. But I have just about forgotten hinges now. I use mounts, and I like them. I think they give a pit of pizazz to the display of a stamp.

I have seen your referenced article and many others that examine hinge composition and the results are all over the place. Part of the problem that I find repeatedly is a failure by the analysts to clearly state what vintage the tested hinges are and how they arrived at their conclusions. The Collectors Club of Chicago is a prime example. They undertook testing multiple brands of hinges for PH, peelability and tearing and adhesive type. Great data and tables and methodology but zero mention as to whether or not the hinges were contemporary to the study which was first done in 1992 and revised in 2015.

https://www.collectorsclubchicago.o...ic-products/

The Institute for Analytical Philately is silent on the matter. Others reference horse hide based collagen, gum Arabic and Dextrin. You cannot find a definitive testing report for hinges from the era that we all refer to as the Gold Standard. For that matter can we even clearly define at what point the change in hinges took place?

It is a confounding and seemingly simple problem to solve with today's technology and yet here we are.

If only Bill Gross had used hinges. What could have been...

Hey all.
Just started looking at the forum again after a while. This topic is interesting because a few years back I sort of made an attempt at trying to figure out the hinge problem. I tried to make hinges via the kitchen table method. I used locally sourced material mainly eatable gum from an Indian store near my home and tracing paper. I played around with it a bit and came up with something that was halfway passable. The mixture I came up with looks like a watered down mucilage. I tried different mixtures until I came up with one that I could coat the paper a couple of times with. The tackiness held the stamp but not sticky enough to do noticeable damage to it or the page I was using. Maybe just a little residue I started using these "hinges" on stamps that I was collecting. Not expensive ones but needed to stick them in the album. And every once and a while I would whip up a batch to use. My problems with it would be more of a consistency nature. Sometimes I need to do three coats to get the stick right. Dont know If I could scale it up to a commercial venture but works ok for small batches of 4 to 7 sheets of tracing paper.

I just made a post here: https://goscf.com/t/64618&whichpage=5 (lower portion of page 5) regarding "modern" self adhesive hinges. It my be of interest to readers of this thread but was a better fit to the other thread.

Yes both threads, this and that, bemoan the lack of good modern hinges equal to the superior products made decades ago.

I started collecting used stamps last year. I mostly use Prinz and have had no problems. I had trouble in the beginning simply because I didn't know the proper way to use them. I have also used the newer Dennison and they are slightly better.
The brand I have had the most trouble with is SuperSafe. They are complete rubbish.
When it comes to removing hinges I use water or re-soak them. Hinges come off easily. Of course they still leave a mark but that's the downfall of hinges.

If you need to soak a stamp to remove a hinge, then they have been applied incorrectly.

A correctly applied Prinz should "peel" off a stamp. That is the benchmark.

Simple answer ----- All you have to do is become the highest bidder at a Rasdale or Dutch County Auction for Dennison or Fold-O-Hinges . Over the pass 20 years there has been many auction lots that came up for auction of 25 or 50 packages {that's a full box }. There is still a large group of collectors that only buy the older brands and will not touch these newer hinges .

It is not worth the effort to try to remanufactor old type stamp hinges . The cost to set-up and the low sales volume are the two factors . There are still enough inventory coming out of the woodwork to satisfy demand .

I have to believe those collectors like myself have already put away a few years of inventory ,so we are not going to be buyers on some new hinge that comes on the market .

The Subway Stamp Shop hinges were "Dennis's" hinges, I think. Named after one of their grandsons. And it sounded enough like the famous "Dennison's" hinges to remind buyers of them. I'm not sure if that brand is still sold. It was supposed to duplicate the old, very popular Dennison's hinges, but it never did for some unknown reason(s).

I've never heard a good explanation of why Subway Stamp could not duplicate the original Dennison's hinges. But yes they did buy the old Dennison hinge-making equipment, probably a single machine of some kind. So they did try, but I've never heard anyone explain why Subway could not get the right ingredients to make the proper Dennison-style glue -- if that was in fact the problem -- but I suppose that makes sense. Everything I have heard is pure speculation of the "I've always heard" variety. Subway had the Dennison machine, so their problem must have been something else like the adhesive. I can't imagine the glassine paper made much difference, but maybe. Glassine is readily available, isn't it? So getting the formula right for the adhesive seems likely to be the culprit.

But then there's the larger mystery of why no one can duplicate the original Dennison's hinges anymore. That nearly always points to the adhesive as the cause, as well. The "horse glue" claim is fairly popular. If animal glue was the key to Dennison's removable adhesive, but it got banned, that would explain the demise of these hinges. The problem is I've never seen any evidence to prove the "horse glue" claim, just speculation. But it also could be connected to waning sales of stamp hinges, as some have suggested.

Some people say it was the glassine. Others have claimed it wasn't the glue itself, but the way Dennison applied the glue in a kind of checkered pattern made it less aggressive. But both of these are also just speculation.

Finally (I hope), there's the additional mystery of why Dennison "destroyed its records" about the glue formulation -- if that's what they did. If they did destroy records, as many people claim, why? Or maybe the company just threw away old files? Maybe it wasn't as dramatic as "destroying the glue formula," as some have claimed?

I guess you pick your theory as you think best. This is how conspiracy theories start, isn't it?

Today, modern companies like 3M sell products like adhesive tapes with "removable adhesives", but maybe they have little incentive to make stamp hinges? It wouldn't be difficult to engineer removable tape or 'sticky notes" into hinges, but who knows what modern removable adhesives will do to paper and stamps over long periods of time? I guess we can experiment and see what happens. On cheap stamps, of course!

Well .....well ,you missed out . This morning Dennison green 1,000 hinges packages went for over $23.00 per pack and that is WHOLESALE prices .....tells you the were we could go on retail price .

Note to self: put the packs of vintage hinges in the bank-box and have the collection at home!