For collectors in the USA, Canada and Europe there are ordinarily no sustained months of humidity that creates the problem we get here. Therefore worldwide demand is low.

In Australia I often buy say 20 stockbooks from an estate. 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 sits on TOP of the slipcase and rubbing a finger over it will show you how MUCH gook would have gone down into your stamps otherwise.

My column in this magazine well over TEN years ago called on “Lighthouse” to make slipcases for local collectors. The local agents passed the idea onto the brass in Germany, and it seems to have shuffled right down to the base of the “to be worked on” file.

Not any more. I now note that “Lighthouse” make slipcases specifically for use on stockbooks. There are 2 sizes - one for the biggest selling 32 page stockbooks, and one for the jumbo 64 page size.

As you can see in the nearby photo, they have the well known gold “Lighthouse” logo on the lower left corner.

Slipcases work on a very simple principle. You slide in the stockbook, and the TOP of the pages, and the stamps on top rows are then NOT exposed to moisture, airborne dust, salt, insects or humidity etc, etc.