Saturday Trip To The Stamp Shop

Picked this up this morning for a decent price. All have been hinged but I've never had the whole set before in any condition, used or unused.

What's the safest / best way to get those hinges off without causing any more damage?

Old hinges can be a problem, some peel easily from the gum and others don't. My thought is if they peel easily then no problem, if they don't then trim them and leave them attached to the stamp.

You could try a small artists paintbrush and slightly moisten any problem hinges to aid in their removal. This is said to be the most delicate way to remove unwanted pieces of old hinges.

Thanks guys - Sounds like a nice Sunday morning project before golf :)

...and if you don't have a small artist's paintbrush handy you can try a q-tip.

Nice set of Prexies. Now you can start collecting the "varieties" such as this 832c (in red violet):

Nice purchase, Mike.

It's neat to see them mint. I spent about an hour and a half today sorting hundreds of these by denomination and some of them were so heavily cancelled I could barely see them.

Good luck getting them off the page.

They all popped right off effortlessly. Some of them don't even look like a hinge was ever there. That just made my morning

Mike33 - the 38 Presidential series is one of my favorites! Nice lot there and glad they 'popped' off without issues!

Great looking set Mike. Thanks for showing it to us.

Dianne

I inadvertantly discovered that if you put a stamp in Freon (watermark detector), that once the stamp is removed from the bath it gets cold and the hinges come off easily. You may want to try it on gummed issues, but if memory serves me correctly it didn't do any damage. The old Freon TF can't be found anywhere anymore as it appearantly killed bugs in Brazil, so I am not sure if the new replacement watermark solution works the same. (DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional chemist, I just play one on stamp day).

I LOVE that first line:




Other things that I have inadvertently discovered:
* poison ivy
* cats don't like baths
* singed eyebrows

KirkS,

They do have a newer freeze spray they use to get gum out of carpets. I think its pressurized butane. Dont use near any flame though could get nasty.

Freon? Really? Isn't the stuff rather expensive?
Do you wear protective gloves?

In the olden days (10 years ago) you could purchase Freon TF (and for that matter Freon TE) in the local electronic stores. It was used to freeze electronic components to see if they would fail due to temperature differences). I would squirt it in a bottle, cap the fool thing and use the liquid as needed. Due to the bug shortage caused by using Freon, they took it away. Yes, in todays market, if you could get it is VERY expensive. I have been wanting to try Dust Off to see what it can do. If you turn the can upside down it gets VERY VERY cold on the output of the spray (it is pushing out whatever propellant they use. I wouldn't use Butane, although I have heard some people do. Ahhh the joys of modern chemistry. And no I didn't wear gloves, just used tweezers carefully.