Opinions On Best Stamp Hinges

I know that many people consider Dennisen stamp hinges to be the best and they are what I used growing up, but, they are no longer made.

I vaguely remember reading that the original recipe for the adhesive was lost...

I usually place all of my stamps into mounts and then use hinges to place my mounts into the book, but....

I see the following brands of stamps:

Prinz - $3

Supersafe - $4

Davo Stamp Hinges - $6

Lighthouse Fasto - $6

Dennisen old stock - $14

I still have some Scott Hinges, Prinz, and Supersafe, but was thinking about buying some more.

Dennison not Dennisen are the best from the past. All modern day hinges are the same and all are made by Prinz in Germany where they are packaged into the various different brands.

Interesting. So they are now all made by the same company.

I did notice that my old Scott branded hinges are a different color, but those are pretty old and been around a while...

I vaguely remember reading that somewhere but then I thought that maybe lighthouse would be different...

Prinz are made in Germany if I remember correctly

My spelling is generally terrible and it doesn't help when I'm using my phone cuz then I can't see the full text that I wrote because of screen size...

Thanks for the fast response. I'll probably just get more Prinz hinges then. No reason to pay more.

It's worth paying more for vintage hinges if you're hinging more expensive stamps. For the run of the mill, Prinz will suffice - dampen very slightly. I usually bisect hinges.

This subject has been discussed every year for the past 10 years if not longer here , try doing a search on this board ..

I've got a 65-year-old album where the hinge adhesive has seeped through to the front of the stamps, leaving dark brown stains. I don't think it's sellotape- the "vintage" sellotape I've come across ends up leaving a light brown residue rather than a kind of oily stain. Any idea what that is? Assuming that the schoolboy collector did use hinges, and not some kind of army-surplus wound tape.

In that case any hinges should do since they don't contact the stamps.

I did do a search and I even found some scientific research where they had done some spectrometry on the back of the stamps and their results indicated that the stamps did not all behave the same, but I don't know when prinz became the sole supplier so it could have been before that.

There was also a discussion. I think it was Subway stamps who had reverse engineered the older stamp hinges and they found that that did not do as well as the old originals.

On this board I only saw two references and that I think was 2019 and maybe 2018, I'm not going to go back and recheck. Kind of figured that at 5 or 6 years had passed since I had seen a reference that maybe it was worth asking again.

When I simply searched for hinges using the search built into the website, it returned so many responses. It was almost useless.

I also know that some years back there was an article on this in the APS magazine. My Google search indicated that there should have been an article published in May on the APS website on this topic, but the link did not take me to the article and I couldn't find it when I searched the APS website. I might have been able to use the wayback machine to get it, but that's not the sort of thing I do often, so I'd have to spend time to figure out how that works. And there's no guarantee since the Google results don't generally indicate the date that they're showing me, so I don't really know much about that article.

Flightie bee, I have seen things that have looked like that on a few stamps And I never understood where it came from either. I've never seen it that bad. And my father's notes. He just called it stained.

I found some people discussing alternatives to stamp hinges and I don't remember all the things that they were using but all of them sounded more expensive than stamp hinges. Some people use a scotch tape meant to adhere photographs to pages. I remember correctly it was numbered 811. I'm curious if you have removed any of those stamps ever and verified that there is indeed something that looks like a stamp hinge behind it. Cuz it looks like some of that staining is even on the book pages. And I will admit that some of those stains that come through the stamps sure look like it is hinge shaped.

Flightle_Bee, see this thread about hinges that leave stains on the stamps:
https://goscf.com/t/88214&whichpage=2

ohio_andy, the APS issues with articles about hinges are Dec 2017 and March 2009.

Thanks germnia, I we'll look up the articles and reread them. Blows my mind. It was that long ago. Older I get faster time seems to fly.

Good hinges cost around $30.00 per unopen pack . Think boxes of hinges {50 packs } are a thing of the past .

I think there is still a few boxes sitting in storage somewhere .Rasdale Stamp Auction's had a few last year .

Scotch tape was invented in 1925. One hundred years of yellow/brown residue.

In my opinion I would avoid hinges except for short term storage. Get yourself some decent stock pages - Varios are pretty good and Vario plus are better.

Ohio-Andy as others have said, it is better to invest in old hinges. In general, I've found that hinges from the early 80s and earlier tend to be pretty good. Dennison is the gold standard for sure and the flat ones are as good as the pre-folded ones. Always test with a cheap stamp first. Hinge and let dry and peel it off to check.

Thanks Germania. A few stamps in that benighted album were mounted with a paper tape coated with a white substance that was still sticky after 6 decades. I found that HG sticker remover washed it off, but the job has to be done outside because of the fumes.

ohio_andy; I took a few off, and the "hinges" are different lengths, i.e. cut to length, so I think your surmise that it's some kind of Scotch tape is right. The only thing is that it's still sticky. When I've dealt with old Scotch tape or Sellotape the adhesive is set solid, and has to be scraped off. But that also stains, as does masking tape.