What Do You Do With Stamps Now Days?

Hi,

Just wondering what the go is now in regards to stamp collecting. Do you remove them from the envelope with a little water or do you cut around them or what do we do today?

Thanks very much for any assistance

Good question Jack,
depends on the envelope (cover)
generally speaking there so many stamps today "off paper"
your best bet is to leave on cover till you have an idea what to
keep. Once mutilated the story is over.

Modern "self stick" stamps seem to have a strong following
to keep on paper just cut around the stamp leaving a reasonable margin,
I prefer to remove using white spirits, future damage via this way is unknown.

Welcome to the SCF family

I leave all my stamps on paper these days.
No harm to the stamp and if anyone else wants
to remove the paper later, they still have that
option.

Steve

Welcome to the forum ausjack

From my own personal experience I have found the following countries difficult to soak: U.S., N.Z., Australia (some issues), France (some issues)

The ones I didn't have any difficulty with are: Canada,Germany,and G.B (mostly ok with GB but some newer issues like the large Machin labels are said to deteriorate if soaked)

I guess each individual collector may experience varying degrees of success. Some issues I know do not soak well I just leave on the cover or piece.

Hope this helps

Chimo

Bujutsu

This is Australia Post's recommended method of removing stamps from paper.

How do I get self-adhesive stamps off an envelope?

Self-adhesive stamps have two layers of adhesive. One is the tack that bonds the stamps to the envelope; the other is a water-soluble adhesive that lies between the self adhesive tack and the stamp paper. The water-soluble layer is there so that collectors can obtain good used copies.
Self-adhesive tack is practically impervious to water on one side of the stamp and the varnish creates a waterproof seal on the other. When soaking by conventional methods water cannot reach the water-soluble layer effectively.
Although several substances have been touted as means of overcoming the problem, we do not favour the use of anything other than clean water. To give the water a chance to activate the soluble layer, it needs to be almost at boiling point and the stamps need to be immersed for up to half an hour. The stamps should then be gently eased off the paper and, when dry, any remaining tack removed carefully with an art gum eraser.

Hope this helps, although when I have soaked stamps, I find it works a lot quicker than half an hour.

Steve

Excellent, thanks team. Been a long time and these things sometimes change and they weren't using glue when I was collecting..not that I have anything special put I'll try and put some pic's up soon.

Thanks again

Hi Triggers, that's the method i've pretty much had to use with many countries self adhesives. My Canadian ones tend to come off a lot easer than the US stamps do. I understand there is an extra layer on the one, that doesn't exist on the other. But... no matter how you cut (soak?) it, self adhesive's are an pain to say the least.

That's why I leave most of mine on paper now.

Steve