Un Cancelled Stamps On Envelopes ?

What is the best way to deal with stamps that are on envelopes but have not been cancelled ?

should I take them off or just cut the envelope or leave them alone ?


Havoc

If they are on white envelopes, you can soak them off in warm water. If the envelopes are red Christmas envelopes, leave them on the paper, the dye from the envelope will run and stain them pink.

If they are self-adhesive stamps, chances are they will not separate from the envelopes by just soaking. The self-adhesive stamps are designed to split in water, leaving the bottom layer with the adhesive on the envelope. The top layer with the design comes away free from the envelope. After they have soaked for a while, you have to very gently split them apart by gently slipping one blade of your stamp tongs between the two layers. Be patient. If there is any resistance, split them a little bit and let them soak some more.

Dry the stamps flat on some clean paper. When they are almost very dry, press them between two clean paper sheets with a heavy book.

I remove self-adhesive labels from boxes and sports card toploaders and things like that very easily with one my daughters old hair dryers. Just warm them up a tad, it softens the glue and they gently peel right off.

Any reason to not do that with stamps?

Thanks !

so once the stamps are soaked off the envelope is the value diminished ? and is that something that should be disclosed if I wanted to sell stamps that have been soaked off ?

Havoc

quote:

---

I remove self-adhesive labels from boxes and sports card toploaders and things like that very easily with one my daughters old hair dryers. Just warm them up a tad, it softens the glue and they gently peel right off.

Any reason to not do that with stamps?

---

I haven't tried that. You could experiment with some inexpensive common stamps. I think it would soften the gum and allow you to remove the stamp, but it would still have gum on it which would stick to your stamp mount or album page. The post office designed the layers to separate in water for collectors.

quote:

---

so once the stamps are soaked off the envelope is the value diminished ? and is that something that should be disclosed if I wanted to sell stamps that have been soaked off ?

---

Yes, they should be sold as no gum unused stamps.

I think the main reason why USPS went to the unsoakable stamps is this very reason. I see alot of stamps going thru the mail stream and arrive uncancelled. Any person would try to reuse them. Maybe they were losing too much money........