He, although it need not have bee a 'he:, probably thought that would protect the perforation tips from being bent..
Probably would be just as good soaking the hinge remenints and any residual glue off anyway.
Obviously another person who did not read the instructions on how to use stamp hinges, even though the instructions are on the package....... So many stamps are ruined by people not correctly mounting stamps, be it from using hinges or mounts.
a while back I wound up with a small metal box of used US stamps in a lot I bought. Nearly all of them had half a hinge on the back, older ones that don't peel easy. So I just dumped the entire boxfull in the sink. Floated those suckers right off and cleaned any gum remainders off too.
What also bothers me are collectors who, do as you have shown, but also use large size hinges with the large portion on the stamp right at the perfs. If hinging at all, I prefer to mount the hinge a several mm down from the perfs and the small portion on the stamp.
Chimo
Bujutsu
"I prefer to mount the hinge a several mm down from the perfs and the small portion on the stamp."
Then there are those who use four hinges on stamps larger than definitive size. One on each corner. For definitive sizes, two hinges are used; one on top the other on the bottom.
I just removed stamps from some album pages (I'm using the pages; had no intention of keeping the stamps anyway). The stamps were mounted using used hinges. Stamps thinned when removing the hinges as it was gumless glassine against the stamp gum. The over-used moisture on the used hinges also wet the gum area of the stamp not hinged so that the stamps were stuck nicely on the album pages.
Just thinking about this... could much of the poor hinge placement be from older hobbyists with poor eyesight. I was recently coaching a model building friend of mine, and realized one of his problems with building is that he couldn't see well!
Tom, while I think your premise is possible, if you are tearing down a hinged collection, usually the stamps in the collection are all hinged the same way. The time it takes to build a collection, most likely it's just the collector, not the eyes.
Last night I saw a collection being offered on ebay where the seller was proud to state that all the stamps were mounted to the albums pages using corner mounts. Bent corners on each stamp anyone?
Just remembered another story about hinges.
A few years ago when I was building my USA collection I bought some lots. One of these included as the centerpiece a Scott Minuteman USA album that had pages up to 1974 or so. There were plenty of photos of page after page of stamps in mounts. No real description other than, "Big lot, look at the pictures".
I bought my own Minuteman album around 1972 and it was a big purchase for 14 year old me, some $15 plus postage! I saw this album as a mirror to my old album, collected by someone like me.
I bid on it and get the entire lot pretty cheap. I get the album in the mail and I was instantly horrified that all those nice stamps in mounts had horrible multiple hinging on the backs! Yes, this must've been our collector's third or so album and he then discovered mounts! Nothing after 1940 was worth keeping. Big postage lot.
Fortunately for me, there were stamps in glassines etc that were worth way more than what I paid for the whole shebang.
A year or two ago I bid on a box lot at the Houston club
and mainly wanted three or four large Elbe binders. There
were also about five other binders, some empty and some
that had stamps on blank or quadrille pages. There were
also a couple of old looking albums, some baggies with
common stamps and a large mess of postcards, used and blank.
I think I bid $20 against no one else. It was auction night
and several members had fair sized boxes in the auction
probably what the seller thought was floor sweepings.
The binders were fine and most are now in use. The blank
pages were as expected mostly common definitives. however,
one thing that became obvious, one of the previous owners
had no idea that some British stamps, Elisabethinen era
had phosphor bands or that watermarks can be inverted or
sideways. Good for me.
What I think was most interesting was an album from the late
thirties, full of common enough German, Dutch French stamps
from about 1938 on with a big gap towards the end of the war,
resuming towards 1950.
Quite a few were painstakingly mounted with what must have
been quality hinges, but at some point the collector began
to bi-sect the hinges, and probably later, trisect his
remaining stock of hinges. There were no real full long
sets, and the open spaces were not necessarily the highest
value. The cancels were randomly applied with a few SOTNs.
The edges of the pages showed signs of wear and some foxing,
but the main part of the pages were bright but brittle.
I imagine an older man, ineligible for military service,
working in an office of some kind where he had access to
the regular stamps of the era,
starting the collection and as the war raged on using his
hinges sparingly, gathering stamps from envelopes and
processing them for mounting in some dark cellar as bombers
droned overhead. Supples becoming scarce, then unavailable
and safety continually compromised.
Then a crisis, a death or induction into one of those
last chance military formations made up of older men, young
boys and lightly disabled who had been previously exempt.
Several years later the collector or a family member picks
up the collection and builds the UK section that had been
unavailable during the war. The hinges eventually are used
as designed and somehow the album wends its way to a dealer
in the US and a collector in the Houston area to me. The
limited verbiage printed on the pages seemed to have been
German or Dutch, initially I hadn't paid attention to which.
I just stripped the stamps and either added some to my albums
or put them in glassines with other common era stamps.
I was only later that I began to wonder what amazing story
could have been told.
I read somewhere that in the very early days of stamp collecting it was common for the collector to either glue the stamps on a page or if the stamps were mint, just lick them! I'm not sure when hinges were invented, but before hinges there were limited options! I know some people consider this to be an urban myth, but I know of an older lady fixing up her deceased husbands stamp collection with tape, including some rather rare stamps. Has anyone ever discovered a way to remove old tape residue from the front of stamps?
Joe
I have a Scott International Brown album that was published in 1899. The back pages are advertisements for hobby products being sold by Scott.
Hignes as we known them today are made of gummed glassine. In 1899, hinges were called "Gummed Paper for Pasting Stamps in Albums". The text in the ad calls them "hinges".
But, you are right that collectors, even today place stamps in albums incorrectly using just about any means they can think of, most of which is detrimental to the stamps. Many people, even when they use hinges or mounts, use them wrong, which damages the stamps. Collect long enough, and you'll see it all.
Here are some means of placing stamps in albums that I have seen from collections that irreparably damage stamps:
- paper hinges
- medical (white) tape cut into strips like paper hinges
- clear tape
- staples
- glue
- licking the gum
- stamp selvedge
- photo corners
- Crystal mounts
...and incorrect albums to use that also ruin stamps:
- photo albums
- clear coin holders
- acidic paper
I'm sure I have seen more, but I can't think of them right now.
I would say any hinge can damage the stamp. It may not change the value but there is damage. Storage is likely a top one.
i bought a decent mixture housed in a 3 ring binder hinged at our last stamp meeting.The only trouble is a previous owner hinged as high up on the top of the stamp as he could..making safe removal of the old hinge difficult..i know i could soak them all..just an observation.
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
He, although it need not have bee a 'he:, probably thought that would protect the perforation tips from being bent..
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
Probably would be just as good soaking the hinge remenints and any residual glue off anyway.
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
Obviously another person who did not read the instructions on how to use stamp hinges, even though the instructions are on the package....... So many stamps are ruined by people not correctly mounting stamps, be it from using hinges or mounts.
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
a while back I wound up with a small metal box of used US stamps in a lot I bought. Nearly all of them had half a hinge on the back, older ones that don't peel easy. So I just dumped the entire boxfull in the sink. Floated those suckers right off and cleaned any gum remainders off too.
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
What also bothers me are collectors who, do as you have shown, but also use large size hinges with the large portion on the stamp right at the perfs. If hinging at all, I prefer to mount the hinge a several mm down from the perfs and the small portion on the stamp.
Chimo
Bujutsu
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
"I prefer to mount the hinge a several mm down from the perfs and the small portion on the stamp."
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
Then there are those who use four hinges on stamps larger than definitive size. One on each corner. For definitive sizes, two hinges are used; one on top the other on the bottom.
I just removed stamps from some album pages (I'm using the pages; had no intention of keeping the stamps anyway). The stamps were mounted using used hinges. Stamps thinned when removing the hinges as it was gumless glassine against the stamp gum. The over-used moisture on the used hinges also wet the gum area of the stamp not hinged so that the stamps were stuck nicely on the album pages.
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
Just thinking about this... could much of the poor hinge placement be from older hobbyists with poor eyesight. I was recently coaching a model building friend of mine, and realized one of his problems with building is that he couldn't see well!
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
Tom, while I think your premise is possible, if you are tearing down a hinged collection, usually the stamps in the collection are all hinged the same way. The time it takes to build a collection, most likely it's just the collector, not the eyes.
Last night I saw a collection being offered on ebay where the seller was proud to state that all the stamps were mounted to the albums pages using corner mounts. Bent corners on each stamp anyone?
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
Just remembered another story about hinges.
A few years ago when I was building my USA collection I bought some lots. One of these included as the centerpiece a Scott Minuteman USA album that had pages up to 1974 or so. There were plenty of photos of page after page of stamps in mounts. No real description other than, "Big lot, look at the pictures".
I bought my own Minuteman album around 1972 and it was a big purchase for 14 year old me, some $15 plus postage! I saw this album as a mirror to my old album, collected by someone like me.
I bid on it and get the entire lot pretty cheap. I get the album in the mail and I was instantly horrified that all those nice stamps in mounts had horrible multiple hinging on the backs! Yes, this must've been our collector's third or so album and he then discovered mounts! Nothing after 1940 was worth keeping. Big postage lot.
Fortunately for me, there were stamps in glassines etc that were worth way more than what I paid for the whole shebang.
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
A year or two ago I bid on a box lot at the Houston club
and mainly wanted three or four large Elbe binders. There
were also about five other binders, some empty and some
that had stamps on blank or quadrille pages. There were
also a couple of old looking albums, some baggies with
common stamps and a large mess of postcards, used and blank.
I think I bid $20 against no one else. It was auction night
and several members had fair sized boxes in the auction
probably what the seller thought was floor sweepings.
The binders were fine and most are now in use. The blank
pages were as expected mostly common definitives. however,
one thing that became obvious, one of the previous owners
had no idea that some British stamps, Elisabethinen era
had phosphor bands or that watermarks can be inverted or
sideways. Good for me.
What I think was most interesting was an album from the late
thirties, full of common enough German, Dutch French stamps
from about 1938 on with a big gap towards the end of the war,
resuming towards 1950.
Quite a few were painstakingly mounted with what must have
been quality hinges, but at some point the collector began
to bi-sect the hinges, and probably later, trisect his
remaining stock of hinges. There were no real full long
sets, and the open spaces were not necessarily the highest
value. The cancels were randomly applied with a few SOTNs.
The edges of the pages showed signs of wear and some foxing,
but the main part of the pages were bright but brittle.
I imagine an older man, ineligible for military service,
working in an office of some kind where he had access to
the regular stamps of the era,
starting the collection and as the war raged on using his
hinges sparingly, gathering stamps from envelopes and
processing them for mounting in some dark cellar as bombers
droned overhead. Supples becoming scarce, then unavailable
and safety continually compromised.
Then a crisis, a death or induction into one of those
last chance military formations made up of older men, young
boys and lightly disabled who had been previously exempt.
Several years later the collector or a family member picks
up the collection and builds the UK section that had been
unavailable during the war. The hinges eventually are used
as designed and somehow the album wends its way to a dealer
in the US and a collector in the Houston area to me. The
limited verbiage printed on the pages seemed to have been
German or Dutch, initially I hadn't paid attention to which.
I just stripped the stamps and either added some to my albums
or put them in glassines with other common era stamps.
I was only later that I began to wonder what amazing story
could have been told.
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
I read somewhere that in the very early days of stamp collecting it was common for the collector to either glue the stamps on a page or if the stamps were mint, just lick them! I'm not sure when hinges were invented, but before hinges there were limited options! I know some people consider this to be an urban myth, but I know of an older lady fixing up her deceased husbands stamp collection with tape, including some rather rare stamps. Has anyone ever discovered a way to remove old tape residue from the front of stamps?
Joe
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
I have a Scott International Brown album that was published in 1899. The back pages are advertisements for hobby products being sold by Scott.
Hignes as we known them today are made of gummed glassine. In 1899, hinges were called "Gummed Paper for Pasting Stamps in Albums". The text in the ad calls them "hinges".
But, you are right that collectors, even today place stamps in albums incorrectly using just about any means they can think of, most of which is detrimental to the stamps. Many people, even when they use hinges or mounts, use them wrong, which damages the stamps. Collect long enough, and you'll see it all.
Here are some means of placing stamps in albums that I have seen from collections that irreparably damage stamps:
- paper hinges
- medical (white) tape cut into strips like paper hinges
- clear tape
- staples
- glue
- licking the gum
- stamp selvedge
- photo corners
- Crystal mounts
...and incorrect albums to use that also ruin stamps:
- photo albums
- clear coin holders
- acidic paper
I'm sure I have seen more, but I can't think of them right now.
re: curse the fiend that hinges on the top perfs !
I would say any hinge can damage the stamp. It may not change the value but there is damage. Storage is likely a top one.