Plastic : How It Destroys Your Stamps.

This stamp (Aden) was taken from a stamp collection
housed in PVC coin slots on a plastic page.

I suspect the plastic is PVC, often seen with FDC
albums (poly vinyl chloride) which is an organic chloride

I have a rough idea from the vendor the stamps were
housed for around 30 years.

The ink has succumbed to the solvent action of the
plastic and one can see the pigment now resident
in the plastic.







how to test for organic chloride

Stamps and plastics are like drinking and driving. You know they're going to end up in a disaster! I try to avoid plastics (even if they do claim to be "archive quality"). I think I'd rather hinge a stamp than put it into those plastic type mounts (the ones with the pull-off adhesive on the back). Does anyone remember those?

ROD: looks to me like your dumb old stamp ruined a good piece of clear plastic...

Seriously, great example of how PVC works -- I have never seen that before.

KirkS

Frightful!

I thought Halloween wasn't until the end of the month?

Here's a link to an excellent presentation on this very subject:

http://www.stamps.org/stampsandplas...es/frame.htm

What a fantastic link wt1!
that was fascinating.
I am comforted by the thought all my covers are in
archival polyproplene envelopes ($15 / 1000)

I had no idea Mylar was no longer manufactured.

When we first erected a new garage at our place,
we had no "whirlygig" on the ridgecap of the roof
as an exhaust, one day in summer when it was 40 degrees c
it was 54 degrees inside the garage.
No place for stamps!

"Stamps want to live where you do" :)

Another example

the one on left is the blue Sth Arabian Fed stamp
after 30 years in a plastic coin pocket.

Most informative article wt1. Thank you for posting.