Self Stick Stamps

This is the first chance I have had to vent my displeasure with the self stick stamps of today.

You go along with a prized album and then everything changes with the mounting. Or I just may be too old to appreciate progressive change.

Any comments

Conn #9786;

Oh, I think you'll find plenty of agreement with your position.

I've stopped collecting anything made after year 2000.

KirkS

Hi Conn.....

If you don't like them....don't buy them......I've found it much more enjoyable to only buy the material I like. Why clutter a nice collection with things you don't enjoy ?

Just think of all the items you could buy with that same money.......$50.00 - 100.00 worth of self-sticks or something nice from the 1800's..........seriously...which would you rather have ?

Hi Conn-

I don't collect current issues, so I don't experience the same frustration. I've stopped saving current used U.S. stamps from the mailstream, though, because it isn't worth the effort to try to soak them (especially since I just give them away, anyway). I still soak the older issues and foreign stamps that collectors send, and I stick them in envelopes for "later."

Since I don't have to try to mount the new stamps in an album, I don't know what it practical, but what about sticking them to a small rectangle of black material (e.g., mylar or cardstock) and then inserting that into a mount in the album? The black backing should pretty much disappear against the mount. It should preserve the appearance.

I don't know where collectors would be going with valuing unused S/A stamps twenty years from now, but I doubt this current crop will increase a ton in value (except for the person who guesses correctly now on how these will be collected in the next generation, and stores them accordingly).

I would like to collect the issues of today but from what I read here it is almost impossible to get the glue off totally. (from some country's stamps).

I understand about using talc or corn starch to stop the ticky from being sticky. Or the interesting suggestion of using a black paper to stick the stamps to, so as to make the perfs and total stamp stand out from the background.

I had the thought recently that since the US post office said originally that there was supposed to be a layer of water soluble primer between the stamp and the adhesive, maybe I just need the type of water that they used when they got their stamps to soak off. (if they did).

Hard water? Tap water with an added something? Not sure. Not a chemist. I read that the adhesives used nowadays for the self adhesives are a polymer acrylic plastic stuff that has the cold flow properties. Darn plastics (never thought I'd say that) !

Well, chemists and molecular scientists all (nanotechnologists awake!) , how about a nano sized designer molecule to chemically change the plastic into something less harmful? Like water perhaps? Or a mixture of gases like air (oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, etc)?

I suppose I will have to wait until the military or big business have a use for the idea and then it will happen. Sigh.

Yes, it's become really problematic now that USPS no longer includes this water-soluble layer in the specs.

Oh, I should have read further. Thank You.

please see other posts by me regarding high value current stamps being used on registered or express mail and then being carelessly pen defaced by clerks when a simple hand stamp would have done. to add to the difficult of getting these stamps off the cover without destroying them entirely one also has to deal with the habit of the postal clerks also taping the lower edge to the envelope. Not worth the effort.

Why in the world would anyone tape the stamp to the cover? Are they worried it might fall off? Or that the sorting machines might grab the loose edge and have the works gummed up?

I think I noticed a Canada envelope with tape applied recently now that you mention it.

Shivers!

Sometimes after the postage is affixed, the clerk adds clear tape to reinforce the package seams/flaps and it "accidentally" touches part of the stamp.

There is no intent to place tape over the postage -- which is a violation of USPS rules.

KirkS

I stopped collecting stamps issued after 2000. But now I am having second thoughts especially for USA stamps since I can easily get them mint. I will just buy a sheet of every new issue. Use all but the one in the middle, cut a border around it and mount it in my album. There is an article coming out in next weeks issue of Linn's about the Postal Service Inspector General and some ideas about the need for so many stamps.

I hope the release is not about plastic stamps again.
Soda bottles everywhere will suddenly become valuable.