Companies like Scott Publishing, Showgard, Harco and Lindner manufacture various kinds of plastic "mounts" for your stamps. Though not very inexpensive (sometimes as costly as 10 cents per stamp mounted), these mounts are used to permanently protect the more valuable stamps that one mounts in an album. Generally, such mounts (with either clear or black backing) come in strips of various sizes for stamps of various heights. One uses a special guillotine cutter to cut the strip down to the size that one desires for a particular stamp. Once placed into the mount, the collector licks the gummed backing of the mount and places it into the album. We highly recommend these special mounts for stamps of value. One key fact to remember: when you use a mount you keep from having to "hinge" a stamp (see below), which of course will affect the back of any stamp mounted.