Where Can I Buy A UV Light To Look For Tagging Of US Stamps?

where can I buy a uv light to look for tagging of us stamps?
i look online but am not wealthy .

i have used a black light but it shows some stamps but not us.

thanks for your help as always.

A short wave UV light is going to be quite a bit more than the long wave lights. Subway (I think) had the dual short/long handheld light on sale recently, but it looks like that sale is over. Internet Hobby Supply has the best price I've seen today, at US$49.99 for the combo light.

I've seen one of the combo lights in action, but don't have any long-term experience with them, so I can't give them a fair review.

You can actually buy jewellers loupes with built in UV lights as well. Good for fine detail on stamps.
In Australia they range from $60 to 200... Do not know about Overseas.
Regards
Horamakhet

i purchased a uv lamp from subway...it came next day to me....now I have to find us stamps with tagging values to look up.
when I purchase my kilos purchases I need to know what rarities to look for.
another new stamp collecting area I need to look at

If you know what you are looking for there are many cheap alternatives out there. Now granted the handheld units are nice compact and not too expensive, but I have found that the UVC or short wave UV of these units vary from unit to unit and manufacturer. Some say they have UVC, but actually fall into the UVB or medium range spectrum. Always look at the specs of the unit you wish to purchase and make sure they fall into these ranges (UVA Long Wave 400-315nm) (UVB Medium wave 315-280nm) and (UVC Short wave 280-100nm).

I have found that the short wave handheld units tend to eat batteries like they were free and the last combo unit I had was very poorly made and broke several times before I came up with my new solution. Now I use a germicidal (shortwave) bulb light and a Plant Grow (longwave) bulb light. These fit perfectly into a double headed desk lamp on a spring arm I got from harbor freight. The bulbs run about $9-$13 bucks each and they have been working flawless for over a year.

Granted they are not portable units, but aside from the initial investment of under $30 I never need to replace batteries or look for a missing light that the kids may have taken to make the (bathroom glow). I purchased mine from a garden shop and a salon shop a town over from where I live, but I'm sure ebay would have it somewhere as well. They also sell them in tube styles or in various socket sizes too.

Hope this helps


PS...
Forgot to add that if using a UVC bulb don't leave it on or work under it as it can be harmful to you. I use a piece of black construction paper that I cut a slit in it over the lights bell to limit the amount of light emitted from the bulb, and I never leave them on either.

I posted this catalog listing in a separate thread. The last three entries are specifically geared for "philatelic use" and the price is in the $50 to $100 range (retail) but typically sells for $40 to $70 on various stamp supply web sites. If battery life is a problem, there is also a AC adapter (sold separately) available for them:

http://www.raytechultraviolet.com/p...ersalume.php

This could be nice... maybe

Probably a short duration of lamp, but you can be 5 of them for the price of on in your local shop.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Blue-UV...330546391919

The ebay link appears to be more of a currency detector than anything else. Also with the requirement of 3 button batteries, I can imagine that replacement battery costs can be quite expensive (possibly double or more the cost of the magnifier to begin with).

For stamp collectors, you'll likely need a shortwave UV light, as per the example I previously posted that runs in the $50 to $100 range.

I suppose a lot depends on what countries you collect. Maybe the cheap magnifier/UV lamp would work for some stamps, but certainly not all (not US anyway), which would require the need a shortwave UV light.

wt1, thank you for the explenation.

i even didn't know that exists 2 different UV waves, and, especially, that there is so big difference in usefulness between them.

but, it explains why I never had a success to do anything with my currency detector

Ray Tech, the manufacturer of the Versalume UV light mentioned previously, allow a free download of their booklet "The Story of Flourescence". In particular, pages 13-16 explain the UV light differences and how it reacts to various postage stamps. May be interesting reading for anyone considering a UV lamp and the longwave v. shortwave varieties of lamps on the market:

http://www.raytechultraviolet.com/s...rescence.pdf

In 30+ years of collecting US stamps, I have never heard reference to US stamps being tagged. I don't collect after the year 2000, so I might have missed something.

If there are tagged US stamps, will someone please point to what stamps were tagged, and how?

Thank you,

Brian

great article! - answered a bunch of questions which I didn't even know I had.

thanks for the link,

-p

wt1, thank you for the very interesting booklet!

Rileysan, in the booklet you will find answers on all your questions!

This is the second time in a week that I've seen a reference to this topic, and thought everyone was nuts. Turns out, I missed the boat! And yes, I click "I accept" every time I install a new piece of software on my PC. I really don't want to know what I just agreed to ...

In the Scott Specialized catalogue, in the introduction, under the section titled: "Luminescence", is a complete history of tagged US stamps.


First section is about paper. If you are interested in checking for luminescent paper, an over the counter UV light will not suffice.





The next section is too large for me to type right at the moment. There were a number of stamps printed or overprinted with phosphor tagging starting in 1963.

Scott also warns collectors not to look directly into the UV lamp for long periods of time.

I might have turned over a new leaf. I'll let you know the next time I have to "agree" to an End User License Agreement.