What Is Acceptable To Improve The Appearance Of A Stamp?

There are a range of things we can do to improve the appearance of a stamp.

In another thread I showed images of a stamp that looks to have had rust removed (here:https://goscf.com/t/17003)or should I more correctly say the appearance of the rust has been altered. I think this is manipulation that should be advised to the purchaser. I don't think these treatments are in any way permanent and the stain returns in pretty quick time.

If a used or mint-no-gum stamp has a hinge remainder or gum that is toned or discoloured, as you being misleading by removing these to create a stamp that is more pleasing to the eye (both from the back and front. It is surprising how much surface grime accumulates on a stamp over 100 years)?

I saw a Melbourne dealer many years use stamp tongs rubbed briskly on the back of a heavily hinged mint stamp to create heat that allowed the hinge remainder to fall off. He then 'polished' the gum with french chalk spread on the desk to transform a heavily hinged stamp with hinge remainder to a lightly hinged stamp with much fresher looking gum. Is this acceptable?

Obviously plenty of discussion is being held in the stamp world about added perfins, reperforating and regumming, all of which are clearly fraudulent IMHO. (oh, forget the 'H', I'm not humble but I am probably more humble than Rupert Murdoch!).

My view is that you have a stamp and you have foreign matter. Removal of foreign matter is acceptable (I give all my used stamps with hinge remainders a bath in hot water so that only the stamp remains) but any manipulation of the physical stamp itself to present it as something other than original item delivered from the printer to the post office is unacceptable.

The treatment of rust falls in the middle somewhere. I wasn't on the stamp originally but I don't think it is foreign matter either as it becomes part of the stamp.

What are your thoughts?

Yes I clean old used stamps to a certain point but never bleach.
If the stamp has a deep stain of any description my way of cleaning would never be able to remove such a thing.

Rust is a term used a bit to much on the older stamps. How many times have I soaked a rusty looking stamp and the colour is an old piece of paper or hing or gum that has never been removed.

I can not see a way to use bleach on a stamp without instantly destroying it.
Clean and crisp not bleached dull. Because of bleaching dull shades are a danger as well.

It takes a fair bit of time on damaged stamps to get a feel for what is the right thing to do or not in cleaning a stamp. To keep the stamps true natural appearance is upper most to me.

I would have to give some thought to this since I think that there are various perspectives since what the owner of the item does for his/her own gratification may not be acceptable to others. So the question in my mind is if that item is placed on the market for sale/trade, what must be revealed to avoid it becoming a fraudulent description. This is similar to artificially adding patina to say, a lamp, to make it appear old.

64idgaf,

I don't find anything wrong with washing hinged (used of course) stamps and I don't feel I was manipulated if a seller is practicing "kitchen chemistry" to deal with "rust" which obviously destroys the stamp itself.

However re-gumming (and that is what the dealer you know was doing) is a big NO NO since it does not preserve the stamp but alters its condition and in my mind it's fraudulent.

I think one has to decide if an action is meant to deceive a potential buyer.

If you place a hinge over a thin in order to hide it that is deception.

If you remove scotch tape stains with lighter fluid that is NOT deception.

If you somehow repair a tear in a high-value stamp and bring it to the attention of the buyer, that is not deception. However, I would be reluctant to perform such a repair because someone down the line may not disclose the repair to a buyer who doesn't know how to look for such things.

So in the example given by the original poster, I think (IMHO of course!) that it would be alright to REMOVE the rust if there exists a safe way to do that, but it is NOT alright to alter the appearance of rust and have that rust still remain on the stamp.