Spanish Colonies To Hinge Or To Mount

Started a Spanish Colonies collection in Scott Specialized album. As I suspected already told by two auction houses not something they would take for consignment as a stand alone item even if meeting the minimum and it may or may not. This to avoid disappointment as some areas not popular in todays world. Before this I always had a hefty amount of material in price and quantity but this may be the one collection I eventually sell solo. I have one auctioneer that will take anything I have but he too is aging.

My main question is that much of the material will be MNH and lower priced. Cannot get myself to hinge the MNH so I am using clear mounts. Much of the other material is higher priced and generally hinged. Considering Dennison hinges vs mounts but thinking of using black mounts to differentiate MNH vs hinged. Never mixed like this before but never quite had this situation. I know many/most are not into mixing clear and black. Are mounts stuck down with glue sticks removable? No experience here. The album is already loaded with clear top mounts stuck down where most of the MNH stamps placed. Looking for opinions!

P.S. Or I suppose clear mount everything?

P.S.S. I have dennison hinged mounts but it seem a bit over the top here.

P.S.S.S. Lick/wet/glue stick the entire mount or upper 1/3 or lower 1/3?

Mixing clear and black mounts creates a messy effect. Black mounts on printed albums don't work in any case, because they generally obscure information. I'd use clear mounts - if you feel the need, you can always add an annotation to show unmounted mint versus mint, using the standard code - two stars for UM, one star for mint, star in brackets for unused.

That argument, frequently, surfaces. But what information is obscured if it is a black and white image of the stamp, or text providing the face value and colour?

There is little loss of information if "7c / Blue" is obscured by a black mount holding a blue stamp with a face value of 7c. And if you are missing the 3c and 5c values between the red 2c and the blue 7c values, it does not take an academic degree to figure out where those stamps should go.

The times that there were no online catalogues telling you what stamps are in the set have gone.

My thoughts so far. I have cleaned up the album to near perfection removing hinge remnants and repairing mounts. I do not want to write on the pages even in pencil or even a dot. I will have many low price yet MNH stamps that I want the condition to be known.

I used little red stick-on dots in some of my collections to denote stamps with certs. They pop right off if need be. Could this work for identifying MNH sets and singles?

I like this idea of 1/8" peelable dots. Not sure red or black and to denote the MNH which will be the majority (i think) or denote the minority (hinged I think) and what color for the hinged minority (i think).

Still would like to know how best to mount the mounts. I would like them to be removable but many are already completely stuck down but they are almost all the MNH. Removable not a must but are glue sticks a viable way?

It has come to me that even thought the MNH may be the majority they are mostly sets of a few to several stamps. I could denote the set with a dot and not every individual stamp. This will allow the sets and the occasional single stand out.

Even better many many whole pages are MNH and cpuld be denoted with one dot per page.

Mint Never Hinge is becoming a thing of the past for most stamps .

I use stamps mounts only on sets over $10.00 and pre-1940 MNH stamps.

The 50 billion stamps issued in the past 60 years who cares if they are hinged or not ,those are bought and mounted in albums . The whole MNH thing is fading away for collectors for anything modern ,even some auction houses are not making a deal about it .The issues for the last 60 years has no extra value as MNH .

Yes I saw that with a few collections I sold from my past. A very large MNH India collection was scoffed at by the auction house describer and did quite poorly. A hinged collection purchased much cheaper would have done better.

Instead of individually mounting stamps in the album that I have the original owner mounted the stamps in long strips such as 3-5 stamps across and the entire strip moistened. Looks good and seems to work just fine. I read several pages under "search" about mounts and how to apply. My head exploded.

I've seen some collections for sale where the hinged stamps are placed in the mounts upside down. I don't know if it came that way from the collector or whether the auction house did that while reviewing.

It would drive me batty, but it is another option besides writing on the page (which is what I do, in light pencil, along with the catalog number, and if any faults).

Strictly speaking, Scott doesn't show a premium for MNH for those issues, because Scott says that MNH is the expected condition. Hinged would/could/should take a hit.

Now, I don't really care, but, (a) I'm not buying very many stamps printed in the last 60 years; and (b) I'm not trying to convince someone buying my stamps that MNH doesn't matter. I bet it will to the dealer making an offer.

My 2d (as a Vario user).

The only time I've seen that is to denote an inverted watermark. At least as far as I recall.

(I've seen it done to make it easier to read a perfin or postmark, too, but that doesn't really count.)

Cjd got it. What is expected to be MNH will be. The rest will be hinged as expected. No need to mark except for the occasional MNH exception. Clear top loader mounts. As I am also future oriented with this one collection Cherrystone: $5000 minimum and 10% seller commission. Early Spanish Colonies sells. Beware the pricey overprints. Buy with certificate or pass.

Randy, another idea that I have used in the past, and as space permits in your album, is to use mounts that are significantly taller than the stamp itself. This leaves room for you to place a small horizontal label with whatever information you need, including hinging state. This woud obviate the need for placing writing on the album pages or using dots on some but not all stamps.

As far as the mint never hinged question, I can only say that even stamps issued after 1960 do command a premium compared to the same stamps being sold that are hinged. My approach has always been to buy stamps individually or in complete sets. So perhaps the perspective is different when selling a large collection that auction houses don't want to bother breaking up intelligently.