Hinges and mounts: why a hinge costs you

Stamps · 5 September 2026

A hinge is a small folded tab of gummed paper: one half sticks to the back of the stamp, the other to the album page. It was the standard way of mounting stamps for about a century, and it works – at the cost of a permanent disturbance in the gum. On used stamps that costs nothing. On unused ones it removes the single feature collectors examine most closely.

How a hinge marks a stamp

The hinge is moistened and pressed to the gum. When it dries, its own adhesive bonds with the stamp's gum, and removing it lifts a thin patch of that gum away – sometimes with a layer of paper fibre underneath. The result is a hinge mark: a small area of disturbed, matt gum, visible when the stamp is tilted to the light. A thin spot is worse: the paper itself is thinner there, and it shows as a lighter patch when the stamp is held against a light source, exactly like the check described in the guide to seeing a watermark.

When hinging is still fine

• Used stamps. There is no original gum to protect, so a hinge changes nothing.
• Stamps already hinged. A second hinge in the same place adds nothing new; re-hinging a previously hinged stamp is normal practice.
• Stamps without gum. Same reasoning – nothing left to disturb.
• Working albums. For sorting and study, where the stamps are common and the point is arrangement rather than preservation.

Where hinging is not fine: anything unused with original gum that you intend to keep, and anything you might later describe to someone else as never hinged.

What mounts do instead

A mount is a clear sleeve, closed on three sides, with a black or clear backing. The stamp sits inside and nothing touches the gum; the mount itself is what sticks to the page. Two things matter when choosing one: the material must be inert – polyester or polypropylene, never soft PVC, which releases plasticiser and marks the stamp over years – and the size must fit, because a mount that squeezes the stamp bends the perforation tips.

The trade-offs are honest: mounts cost more, they add bulk to an album, and a badly cut one looks worse than a neat hinge. But they are the only way to keep original gum intact while still displaying the stamp.

Removing an old hinge

1. If it lifts dry, let it. Old hinges often release on their own after decades. Peel slowly, parallel to the stamp, never at an angle.
2. If it resists, stop. Force is what creates thin spots. A remaining hinge is a lesser defect than a torn stamp.
3. Never wet an unused stamp to free a hinge. Water dissolves the original gum – the thing you were trying to save.
4. Do not trim the hinge away with scissors. Cutting near the stamp risks the perforation and gains nothing.

Storage that avoids the question

• Stockbooks. Card pages with clear strips; the stamp slides in and nothing adheres at all. The simplest answer for most collections.
• Glassine envelopes. Cheap, inert, ideal for duplicates and sorting.
• Album pages with mounts. For display, when arrangement matters.
• Whatever you use, keep it dry, dark and unpressed – the same conditions described in the guide to storing a paper collection.

Why this matters for value

On unused classic material the description of the back is part of the description of the stamp, and the difference between never hinged, lightly hinged and heavily hinged is recorded separately from the design and the perforation. That is why the state of the gum belongs in the same list of readings as everything else, alongside what is covered in mint versus used. The archive's 6,382 Soviet issues of 1918–1991 are catalogued by their faces, but any stamp you hold has a back too – and it is worth looking at before you mount anything.

Open the catalogues: world stamps, Soviet stamps.