New Arrivals!

Yay! New additions for my collection arrived today! Maps and Scandinavia == happy . By the way, are souvenir sheets typically sold without gum, cause these don't seem to have any so far as I can tell.

Clark

Those are really attractive souvenir sheets.

Unless, the experts say otherwise, these sheets may have dry gum which at times appears to be without gum.

But don't lick them to find out!

Marty

Very nice clark do like the steamers and trains .

Very nice souvenir sheets Clark

Clark,

Very nice S/S's!! I love Scandinavian stamps! Iceland has come out with some really "cool" ones lately, including heat sensitive ink!

Almost all modern S/S's come with gum.

I have the Finland S/S's. I can tell you for sure they come with gum. It is NOT dry gum. However, neither is it glossy. It is basically a clear non-glossy gum, that may appear to be without gum. But if you compare to the back of a used stamp, or compare to the white side margin of the S/S, you should be able to see a difference.

Also, on large S/S's, it is almost impossible to have perfect gum because of the size. Therefore, if you hold the S/S at an angle underneath a good light and carefully exam the back, you should be able to spot some sort of trivial gum disturbance (thinning, drop-out spots, pitting, fingerprints). It's like a new car -- if you look hard enough you can ALWAYS find a small dent/pit somewhere.

k

I should clarify that I distinguish between "dry gum" and "dull finish gum". The non-glossy gum is what I usually refer to as dull finish gum.

Colorless dry gum is what I usually refer to as "dry gum", and is basically 100% invisible. The paper looks identical front and back. An example of dry gum usage is on the US 50 bird/flower setenant sheet. Fingerprints show up exceptionally well on "dry gum", as it tends to be extremely sensitive to the slightest presence of moisture.

Many collectors will refer to the non-glossy gum as "dry gum" as well. It is still a "relative" term. So Marty's use of the term is not incorrect.

Very nice indeed

At the risk of stealing thunder from Clark's very nice S/S acquisition (please forgive me), here is an image of the Icelandic S/S that my friend acquired. In the top stamp, the red lines represent ice coverage. When you put it near a light bulb or other heat source, the red lines slowly disappear -- representing the shrinking ice coverage. It's a really cool S/S. I really regret not having purchased it from Iceland Post last year!

Man I really like the maps!

khj, no thunder stolen! :) Actually, I've seen that Iceland s/s before and it is definitely on my hit list as I study climate and sea ice. There are a lot of neat International Polar Year (IPY) stamps and s/s coming out now. I'd love to collect as many as possible given it's directly related to my research and that I was in an IPY sea ice summer school a couple summers ago.

Thanks for the info on the gum, too! You seem to be able to answer all my questions here! I need to come up with something harder...

Clark

OK, I need to correct myself. I'm glad I didn't purchase the Iceland S/S last year because it wasn't issued until this year (Jan 29, 2009). Man, I'm really getting old.

On a whim, I checked and it appears to me that the S/S is still available from Iceland Post. I'm sorry if I gave the impression that it was no longer available.

I will have to take a look in the morning!

Clark

nice s/s. Those Finland sheets are difficult to get. I think those are missing from my collection. The only way of getting them is buying, I am afraid. Chances of finding them in lots, or trading for them are small.

nice nice

Thanks for posting K very interesting S/S mate,I must still be living in a cave as this is the first time I've heard of such heat/photo sensitive ink in use on a stamp.

khj, you are just pure evil! My cart at Iceland's Post website is filling itself! How do I stop it??

Someone, oh someone please help me! I might accidentally find Greenland Post...

Clark