Purchasing Glassines

Great to see you posting on Stamp Bears again! Hope all is well in Malta!

Regarding expendable stamp supplies (glassines, mounts, hinges...) and stamp storage (stockbook, stockpages...), I strongly discourage you from buying these from continental East Asian sources/manufacturers. Equipment OK, but not expendable supplies or storage.

You are much better off in the long run buying established brands/manufacturers/suppliers. In Europe these would include Lindner, Lighthouse... and their associated European (often German) sources. Yeah, a lot of times all they do is just slap their brand name on it.

I'm not familiar with European glassine manufacturers. Here in the US, the current major player is Westvaco -- although their glassines are a lot more opaque than the older ones. But shipping from US to Malta would basically double your cost. A European supplies dealer would still be your best choice.

If all you are looking for is a couple hundred glassines, it's not worth the US$20 savings to go to an unknown supplier. If you were planning on buying several thousand to tens of thousands, it would be worth exploring and making test sample purchases. But for only a couple hundred, in my opinion the savings is not worth the risk.

I guess I should mention an alternative that I usually don't mention. Since your primary purpose is temporary storage until you put them in stockbooks, you might want to consider simple acid-free envelopes. They are a LOT cheaper than glassines -- here in US, 500 for <<US$10. You can't see what's inside, but you can write on the envelopes and they store a LOT more stamps.

In Malta, you would have to watch out for humidity, so this would not be recommended for mint stamps in that type of environment.

I've used glassines and standard envelopes for decades with no problems. I find the envelopes great when sorting large batches of stamps (1000s to 10000s) into countries. Saved a LOT of money, and of course, you can always use the envelopes later to mail things (just remember to make sure there aren't any stamps still inside -- that's the other drawback (you need to either open up the envelope or hold it up to a light to check to make sure there aren't any stamps left inside).

I realize some may take exception to my comment about Continental East Asia expendable supplies manufacturers. I am Asian. Realities are realities, and regardless of source, one must know your supplier.

You're very welcome.

Please drop by often and also post some pics of your stamps. We LOVE to see stamp pics!

k

Hi Belti

I have been using glassines for years as storage.  I have found that the #2 size is perfect.  There are times you may need larger, especially when sorting, but I have found the #2 adequate for 99% of my needs.  There is one overlooked advantage to the #2.  They fit in a standard business card file!

I would buy them from a reputable dealer such as Subway in the United States.  Because of shipping charges I would buy a whole box of 1000, much cheaper that way.  German glassines might also be alright. I would not trust eBay as you do not know what you are getting. Getting them from a foreign source might be expensive at first but they last a while.

You may want to look at my post for a method of sorting large amounts of stamps:
stampbears.net/thread/4296/method-sorting-stamps?page=1&scrollTo=102670


Jerry B

I've also found used glassines to be perfectly fine for sorting, if a bit yellowed with age in some cases. Mind you, I end up getting annoyed with not being able to see everything and the risk of creasing stamps so new sorting tools are coming my way. Another option is to use the dealer 'red boxes' along with the 102 stamp cards, these work quite nicely and are generally not too costly.

I've not found glassines to be cheaper than 102 cards - maybe there is a place I'm not aware of.

Form 102 Dealer window card 4-1/4" x 2-3/4"
Box of 1000 $51.95
Pkg. of 100 $5.50

Glassine104 #3 : 2-1/2" x 4-1/4"
Per 90 $8.75
Per 1000 $71.50