New To Stamps, Looking For Suggestions.

Hi everyone,

I inherited a stamp collection from my dad. It's been sitting in storage for a number of years and although he had talked about it occasionally, I don't know much about stamp collecting. After going through his collection the past few days I am hooked. I was hoping to get some suggestions on best practices for storing and preserving stamps here. I've basically got two large albums where the stamps are organized by country, year, etc, and the stamps are mounted on - I assume with hinges, as I found a pack of these in one of the boxes.

There are also quite a bit of loose stamps in envelopes and boxes that I'd like to put into albums as well. I'm leaning towards getting a stamp album with plastic slots for storage.



So just a few questions to throw out there:
- Are the existing albums the best way to preserve the stamps?
-Should I consider reorganizing the stamps into a new album that would preserve them better? Or is it best to keep as is in order to prevent damaging the stamps?
-Moving forward, what's the best way to keep/store stamps in an album?
-Should I use tools while handling them to limit contact with fingers?

Any other tips or just preferences from some experienced collectors would be great.

Thanks a lot for any input.

Attached are photos of the type of album and the hinges that I believe he used.

Hi walkingspanish,

If it were me, I'd be inclined to leave the stamps hinged into the albums alone. It'll be like a keepsake.

The loose stamps in envelopes and boxes are another story, and here you can create your own, to sit alongside your father's albums.

Let us know if they are still on envelope paper. A couple of photos will help us a lot!

A quality black page stockbook will show those stamps to their best advantage. Lighthouse are one of the best known brands and you'll have no trouble obtaining them in Australia.

Welcome.
I agree with all of what Bobby De La Rue posted above.
I would add that the best conservation thing you can do is keep a stable environmental condition in the area that the material is kept in. Ideal environmental conditions would be ambient temperature held near a constant 70°F (21°C) with a relative humidity held between 30% and 50% (or as close as possible). Try to avoid swings in either ambient temperatures or relative humidity.
Don

It is nice to read the album got you hooked,

Is there a page with the name of the album at the front and maybe the year it was published?

The album looks fine. Maybe you can post a picture from the side of the album to see if the edges of the pages look fine as well. You might add to this album if it is in good condition.

When you say plastic slots, do you mean hingeless mounts, i.e., pockets for individual stamps? This looks like a worldwide album that runs to 1930 or 1940, If you can find one with hingeless mounts, that will be very expensive. It is a good solution if you buy unmounted and, maybe, extremely fine unused stamps.

Hello. Looks as if it may be a Harris album. Leave the stamps where they are and, if you find others in your envelopes that fit the spaces, add them. Otherwise, as Bobby says, put them in a stock-book.

Most stamp collectors use tweezers, although I'm much less obsessed about doing so than most. If you get some, start with a pair with rounded, rather than pointed ends - it's quite easy to damage paper and card with the pointy ones.

Enjoy!

I'm a few months into my stamp collecting and can share a few bits from a newbie.

Try a pair of spade tip tweezers for handling, the flat ends are relatively gentle on the stamps. That being said, be prepared to goof up. I've creased some or damaged the perforations, just being clumsy moving them around. Luckily, my stamps mostly have only sentimental/historical value, but that's still something I want to preserve.

I use black stock pages from vario in a 3-ring binder. If I get closer to a "complete" collection of something specific I may consider transferring to an album. But I like the flexibility of this system for now.

If you're looking to get into the finer details of your stamps, a small magnifying glass or jewelers loupe is handy.

Whatever tools you choose, make sure they're comfortable to use. There are a lot of repetitive motions involved if you plan to spend hours on this hobby

Welcome to the club. Your questions are where we all started. You might want to look at a few stamp companies (Stanley Gibbons, Amos Advantage (Scott publications), Palo Albums, SAFE, vario, hagner ) and look at the publications, stockbooks, stock sheets, and albums available. This will help you understand the stamp language about storing stamps. Stock sheets/books are a great way to organize and store stamps until you decide what you want to do with them. There are a lot of ideas already available to you here at this site. Use the search function at the top of the page to find answers

I currently use an album similar to the one that you pictured that was issued in 1940. It is for used stamps and I use hinges to mount them. Of course, it only has spaces for stamps up to that date. How and what you collect will probably change over time so make a plan and see what happens.

walikingspanish,

Agree, keep your inherited album as is to pass on to your future generations. Make your own collection to pass on with it.

Collecting for the enjoyment of collecting, whatever that might be, is the name of the game. Don't hesitate to ask questions especially if you need basic information and especially more advanced sources of information for any possible topic. You should be able to find folks on this board a little further along on their collecting journey glad to share experiences.

My personal bias is a used stamp loses the story of its journey in the postal service when it is removed from the cover it transported to its destination. Collecting postal history adds a whole new aspect to your journey in our hobby.

Wishing you many enjoyable future days in our hobby. Russ

Everyone talks as though there is currently mounts you can buy other than hinges. hawid showgard and schaufix transparent mounts all stopped production about a year ago. I hope they will come back into producton as I liked the split back showgard mounts.If you use tweezers/tongs then make sure the tips are smotth not toothed like surgical tweezers. Your Dad probably had some amongst his stuff. I have tweezers for handling other peoples stamps but I often wash and dry my hands then use a small peice of thin plastic to slide under the stamp to avoid bending the perforations. Not best practice but it works.

Lighthouse took overthe Hawid business - there's no shortage of mounts.

Geoff, Thanks for the information. At York on Friday no dealers had new stocks of mounts, so I was basing my comment on this and a reply from one dealer. I am glad they are wrong. Can you get the split back Shogard/Schaufix types as well?

I don't use split-back mounts, but GB Stamps has them -

https://britishstamps.co.uk/gard-stamp-mounts.html

I often buy supplies from them or Dauwalders.