Philatelic Tip #1
© Dr John Horsey FRPSL, County Philatelic Auctions

Exhibiting – A Problem to Avoid

When exhibiting or showing at a club, the display boards often slope and sheets of normal 80gsm A4 or album pages can usually rest safely on the ledges. With more up-market exhibitions, the display frames are vertical and while pages still stand on ledges, only a fine cord near the top stops them falling forwards until the frame's Perspex sheet is secured into place.

This is fine if the sheets are sturdy but normal grade paper tends to bow and flop forwards. For this reason, the paper should be at least 120gsm (grams per square metre). However not all 120gsm paper has the right degree of stiffness.

I wanted a pale ivory shade and found that although I had bought 120gsm paper that particular paper was still too floppy. The gentle tint of the paper was great but it was not readily available in 160gsm.

Initially I used standard Venus Exhibition Protectors but, while cheap, they are flimsy and insufficiently rigid to hold the paper vertically. To solve the problem, I changed to Frank Godden 'Clarendon' Exhibition Protectors. These are stiffer (and a lot more expensive) but they did the trick.

As a test: take the album leaf in its protector and stand it vertically while supporting but not gripping the top. If it flops, think again, or put a cut-down (so it does not show) sheet of 160gsm white card behind the album leaf.