How can I prove that slipcases have any bearing in preventing the amount of “rust” your collection will get, versus NOT using slipcases?  Simple.  I often buy collections of Australia Post annual year stamp books along with that same collector's usual stamp album/stockbooks.  All the PO year books as we know are issued in slipcases as a matter of course.  See photo nearby of a 2001.

Amount of rust or foxing found on stamps in the Year Albums - usually none.  Amount of foxing found in the NON-SLIPCASED albums and stockbooks stored around them - or right next to them in most cases?  Well, you already know the answer I think!   Over my 40+ years as a dealer, I have purchased and valued literally 1000s of collections from within Australia.  The condition of many is appalling.  A mint £2 CofA watermark Kangaroo with bad tone spots is basically worth ~$400 as ultimately “fine used”, instead of ~$4,000 as fresh mint.  All directly due to careless storage.

Most collectors store part or all of their collection in Hagner sheets. These have been widely available globally now for about 50 years, and most (if not all) readers of this column have some (or many) in their stamp den.  Inexpensive and very flexible and adaptable stamp storage.  Tried and proven, very versatile, and quite good value for money, and they last for years. 

How many readers have those Hagners and binders are stored in a SLIPCASE?  Almost NONE is my experienced guess.  In Australia I often buy 20 or so Hagner binders from Estates.  They have been sitting on shelving or in cupboards etc for decades generally.  Each one when opened up, shows the TOP row or two of stamps have the worst toning/rust/foxing.  Why? 

Airborne dust settles there, and then when combined with the humid (often salt bearing) air, which also goes down only a row or two, you have a deadly mixture.  Slipcases combat this perfectly.  Any dust or gunk settles and sits harmlessly on shiny TOP of the slipcase, and rubbing a finger over it each year or two, will show you how MUCH gook would have gone right down into your stamps otherwise.

Slipcases work on a very simple principle.  You slide in the Hagner binder, and the TOP of the pages, and the stamps on top rows are then NOT exposed to all that moisture, airborne dust, salt, insects or humidity etc, etc.  Pure common sense.  Please repeat after me - "Slipcases are THE most cost effective rust prevention accessory available to stamp collectors".  Say it five more times.  THEN contact your regular dealer and order as many slipcases, as you have Hagner binders containing stamps!   

A $20 or so slipcase can prevent a potential loss of $10,000s in extreme cases, and all dealers can tell you of such examples.  I sell endless boxes of the black “Leather Look” matched sets shown nearby, and they are very “cheap insurance”.  And look classy too.  I have never seen a blue or green cow, so why some folks buy “Leather” albums and slipcases, in those very garish colours really mystifies me.  

A NSW client built in an entire wall of his lounge room in classy wood shelving to store his black “Leather” binders and matching slipcases.  As this design and style has been unchanged for 20 years, he has expanded it to several 100 volumes now, as he collects widely.  He says visitors comment the classy gold highlighted spines looks like a Barrister’s Library!  

I did an insurance valuation here for $90,000 in value, of pre-war Australia stamps, with many Roos, that were literally housed in four of those horrid $5 “Chinese” stockbooks. The pages as usual, had all buckled and warped and twisted, due to the cheap clear plastic strips shrinking over time.  What an ugly mess to house very pricey stamps.  MANY were damaged.

Naturally I berated the owner about the lunacy of that.  The highly acidic and unbleached cardboard used on those appalling Chinese books, and the clear thin strips of a nasty PVC that shrinks and leaches chemicals, is like storing stamps in a weak acid bath in this climate!  Needless to say, they are now all safely stored in Hagner binders and slipcases, after giving him my lecture.  

I sell far more Hagner sheets than any dealer in Australia, as my price is near half retail - tinyurl.com/GlenHags   Very often in boxes of 600 or 800 sheets etc, as the price per unit drops markedly for bulk buys, and shipping is more attractive too.  Google “Hagner Sheets” and I am generally the match #1 globally.  I ONLY stock the genuine British made genuine sheets. 

A locally made “copycat” version, called Kanga and other similar names, often unbranded, always gave me headache issues re poor quality a decade or so back, with many sheets literally falling apart due to guillotining issues, and the strips falling off due to bad gluing, and so on.  The long-term acidic properties of the board I have no data on.  Fortunately perhaps, these sheets are no longer made here.  If your sheets do not have HAGNER blind stamped at base, or are blank of maker name, be warned. 

A few binder/slipcase sets are shown nearby, and it really is a very classy looking and well-made product.  “Leather” look deeply grained black covers, and gold bands on the spine.  At just $A40 a binder/slipcase set in a carton buy, they are also surprisingly cheap, and truly essential in this humid climate.  tinyurl.com/GlenHags has detail on those too.  

Each set holds about 50 “Hagner” storage sheets as it has the very LARGE size “D” rings, and I sell literally many 100s of sets a year due to their modest cost.  Well worth thinking about.  After about 10 years the “D” rings on your current binders have usually started to rust/tarnish, and the very thin chromium coating will start to flake off, and get into your stamps.  Toss those away and upgrade. 

And Hagner sheets, even British ones, do not last forever either - many overlook that.  After ten years or so in this climate, that is about the effective life before any aging of the black board starts occurring.  Hard to see unless you wave a small UV lamp over the pages!  They are only a buck or so apiece bought in bulk, so give yourself a weekend project, and swap them over in winter, or at Xmas break etc!

There are quite a few mad myths regarding wise stamp storage.  In Queensland especially, the widely believed and widely acted upon old-wives-tale of pouring talcum powder over your stamps “to stop rust” is to be avoided at ALL costs.  And the same goes for “powdering” with the very slimy, slightly less destructive “French Chalk”.  These products both make a horrible, messy, oily WRECK of your collection (and albums) in most cases.  Most talcum/baby powder has an oil component, and that being smeared all over your stamps is total madness.                                        

This slippery gunk NEVER gets off the face of the stamps or covers, and indeed in engraved/recess printed issues, such as KGV/KGVI/Early QE2 Definitives from nearly all countries, it lodges between the fine recess ink lines.  No amount of huffing, puffing, and blowing and wiping EVER gets it off.  I’ve bought collections where entire containers of yukky white baby powder have been upended into the storage boxes - “to stop rust, whilst being stored”.

So if anyone in your local club advises this totally loopy practice - please take them outside, and beat them mercilessly with a cricket bat!  It is madness, pure and simple, and yet to this day, many still do it.  I had a carton mailed down from Cairns just this week, that near all went in the bin as it was COVERED with several tubs of baby powder.  Albums, binders, FDC, and stamps - all ruined.  Sad.

Seems like a recent thing.  I have this year been getting incessant complaints from buyers overseas regarding 2 and 3 and even 4 month delays in AIRMAIL delivery, and often for “signed for” mail.  Totally unacceptable in 2019, and the delays appear largely to be with Australia Post holding up mail before it leaves the country.  WHY - who knows? 

On the plus side, the sendings near always arrive EVENTUALLY, the clients report to me.  And luckily I am dealing with known regular clients who accept the material has indeed been sent.  Ebay sellers are screwed, as often buyers are first time customers, and they will usually lodge ebay and/or paypal Non-Receipt paperwork within weeks.  

tinyurl.com/OzMails is the long stampboards discussion on this, with lots of specific reports of delays and missing items etc, and has reports some buyers are vowing never to buy stamps from Australia, as the long delays are unacceptable.  It is a very bad situation, and is getting worse each month in my experience. 

Americans in particular, expect all mail “YESTERDAY, if not well before” and they do not accept 3 month delays.  To compound things, our lazy Post Office offers ZERO on-line tracking, even on the $16 Registered Envelopes, so senders cannot even give that to buyers to placate them.  We have Zimbabwe level tracking features, but New York cost of them.

A 1962 cover is shown nearby from a Melbourne suburb, to a town well outside of Vienna Australia.  Registered letter from St. Kilda South (Melbourne), Victoria, posted on 27 Nov 1962 to Kufstein in the Tyrol district, 100 miles west of Vienna, Austria.  Back-stamped at destination on arrival “30.IX.62”.  Just THREE DAYS from origin suburb, to destination town - literally 10,000 miles away.

The cover paid the 4/3d rate to Europe - 2/3d for the airmail letter, and the 2/- Registered fee.  So despite the secure and time consuming Registered handling both ends, we see service and speed basically unthinkable - even in 2019.  And remember in 1962 there were no Airbus A380s, or 777ER or 787 Dreamliner planes etc, that can easily fly 15 hours non-stop.  

The inaugural QANTAS “direct” route to AUSTRIA started in March 1965 and routing was via Perth-Singapore-Bangkok-Karachi-Cairo-Austria.  In April Qantas also started the Singapore-Cairo-Karachi-Calcutta-Perth.  The planes were the slow lumbering Boeing 707 “V-Jets” that had only a few hours fuel range. 

So in 1962, the route was more indirect, and far slower than these “faster” 1965 new QANTAS Routes above - so 3 days is simply amazing speed.  A stampboards member on that discussion showed a 1961 parcel by “SECOND CLASS AIR” from Wembley Western Australia, to rural Ohio, that also arrived in 3 days.  That is about 15,000 air miles.

This oversize packet shown back and front nearby,  was sent Registered from suburban Perth (“Wembley West”), Western Australia, to Sidney, Ohio - posted on 13 March 1961.  And back-stamped on arrival at destination in rural Ohio on March 16, 1961 - just THREE DAYS in total.

Getting a letter on the fastest possible plane connections even today, would see you hard pressed to replicate that speed in 2019, so how they did it in 58 years back, is simply mind boggling.  TODAY the same journey for alleged “Airmail”mail can take 2 months, and of course costs thirty times more.  Unacceptable.

Sothebys are not shy about gouging buyers.  Forget the cheeky 15% and 20% Buyer Fees that most stamp auctions extort of top of your maximum bids.  As you can see nearby, Sothebys globally add a truly outrageous 25% fee, plus all local taxes and VAT and instance etc - even on the £275,000 hammer price, as we see here - taking invoice to £343,750, or about $A650,000.

It wasn’t even the then Beatles Manager Epstein signing this - it was simply his assistant “Alastair” J.A.Taylor, and the Beatles drummer way back then in 1962 was Pete Best, and not Ringo Starr, as can be seen.  Full stampboards link to all this discussion to this contract is here - tinyurl.com/Fab5signed

What would such a moderately interesting legal paper thing sell for?  $1,000?  $10,000?  $50,000?  $100,000 - even $250,000?  Try about $A650,000.  You can buy a very decent free-standing house in Sydney with that kind of money.  Collectibles prices are often hard to fathom.  Even for a 1962 contract!

Things stamp related, and connected to pop music stars are few and far between, but the cover shown nearby, was mailed by Mick Jagger to then girlfriend Marsha Hunt, an American born pop singer.  Jagger did not stint on the postage cost - he paid the extra EXPRESS fee and SPECIAL DELIVERY fee!

Sothebys sold a handful of 10 love letters a few years back, written from Australia by Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, to singer Marsha Hunt for £187,250 - about $A375,000.  Hunt is stated to be the inspiration for the band's 1971 huge global hit single “Brown Sugar”.  Hunt admitted she sold them because she needed the money.

In the ten letters to Hunt that were sold at the auctions as one lot, Mick Jagger describes the Australian outback as the early morning mist “turns red and violent then hard and warm”.  Jagger also comments - “John & Yoko boring everybody…”  and thanks Marsha Hunt for being “so nice to an evil old man like me”.

The letters were written to Hunt, the then publicity poster face of the West End stage production of “Hair” in July and August 1969, while Jagger was filming the movie “Ned Kelly” in the Australian outback.  A more totally unlikely lead actor, to represent rough and tough Irish bushranger Ned Kelly, would be hard to imagine, than the mincing, lisping, effete, lily-white Jagger. 

Predictably the “Ned Kelly” movie was a Box Office flop - and more telling, was effectively disowned by both Producer Richardson, and lead actor Mick Jagger, neither of whom bothered to attend the London premiere.  And indeed, for over for a decade later, Mick Jagger stated he had never even seen the movie!  

Marsha Hunt told The Guardian newspaper at the time of the sale, that she sold the letters that were sent by Jagger, because she had been unable to pay her bills.  Hunt, who now lives in France, also told the British newspaper quite bluntly - "I was broke." 

The love letters contained references to the death of Stones guitarist Brian Jones.  And Jagger’s increasingly difficult relationship with Marianne Faithful, with whom he had been due to co-star in “Ned Kelly”, but who took an overdose of barbiturates, went into a coma, and almost died, soon after her arrival in Australia.

Jagger's relationship with Hunt, with whom he had his first child, Karis, was kept under wraps until 1972.  In 1973, When Karis was two years old, Hunt asked the courts in London for a paternity order against Jagger, and eventually settled out of court.  Jagger called the suit "silly."  He agreed to set up a trust fund for Karis, and pay $17 a week (!) for her support until she reached 21, but he was allowed to deny his paternity on the record.

In 1978, Hunt filed a paternity suit in Los Angeles asking for $580 a week and for Jagger to publicly claim their daughter.  At the time Hunt was unemployed, and received welfare payments from Aid to Dependent Children.  In 1979, Hunt won the paternity suit, saying she wanted "only to be able to say to my daughter, when she's 21, that I didn't allow her father to neglect his responsibilities."

Through the years, Mick Jagger became close to his first daughter Karis.  Jagger ended up being father (admitted) to 8 children, to 5 different mothers.  He took Karis on holiday with his family when she was a teenager, attended her Yale University graduation, and her 2000 wedding, and he was at the hospital for the birth of her son in 2004.