US Stamps Hard To Separate From Paper

Here I am again with another question. Recently, the US post office issued many nice stamps. I got some of them on the mail that was sent to me by my friends (letters, cards/notes). When I cut out a piece from an envelope that has a stamp on it and try to soak it, what often happens is the stamp curls, its surface cracks, but the stamp doesn't want to come off the paper. I tested 1, 2 and even 3 hour soaling. I don't know what kind of glue (gum?) they use, but the stamps just don't want to unstick. I notice this problem with mostly new US stamps, issued within the last few years. The older the stamp, the easier it unsticks. Is there a solution to this? I ended up ruining too many stamps this way.

It's an on-going dilemma. Some stamps soak off very easily; others do not. Check out this previous thread on the very subject:

https://goscf.com/t/15325&SearchTer...elf,adhesive

Stamp lift

http://showgardmounts.com/stamppara...alia_197.htm

wt1, thanks for the link. I did a search on the forum for this but it turned all sort of topics and I just got lost in them. Your link is just what I was looking for.

stallzer, thanks too! I never knew of anything like this existing. I'll definitely try it. Hope it works well with my self-adhesives.

Just bought the Super SAFE Stamp Lift Fluid on ebay. :-) Thanks again for the tip!

As hard as I tried to not collect all the new stuff (the self adhesives) I have a pile that I have been sorting and almost reluctantly putting into vario pages so, I guess I'll just break down and buy the stamplift as well and just succumb to my urge that is collecting EVERYTHING stamps!

While I'm waiting for the Lift Fluid to arrive, I just stopped at Michaels and got the Bestine solvent and thinner. Then at Walmart I got an eyedropper and unscentened baby powder. It works magic! It does smell a bit but I was working on my sturdy stamps in my backyard, so it was OK. It's very windy today, so it helped. The stamps come off the paper nicely, but you have to peel them off right away, as soon as you squeeze some of the liquid on the stamp, otherwise it dries too fast. Once the paper was removed from the stamp, I dropped a bit more of the thinner on the sticky back and gently wiped it with a soft paper towel to get rid of the glue. After that, I sprinkled some baby powder on the back of the stamp and voila, it was not sticky anymore. I'll still keep those in a separate stockbook, just in case.

I found out that some stamps were a lot tougher than the other. Particularly, the US yachts and Disney (all recent, withing the last few years). Boy, were they sticky! I had to repeat the cleaning their backs over and over! Well, at least I don't have to wash them and deal with the cracks and curls.