To Soak Or Not To Soak

I have a lot of mint stamps that were hinged to stamp pages. These are what I call penny stamps. Catalogue value of less than $1.00 so they will never have any monetary value. If I soak them I will put them in my albums with hinges. If I remove the hinges with stamp lift fluid then they will be put in my albums with mounts. Should I soak them to remove the hinges or use Stamp Lift Fluid to remove the hinges and keep the gum?

Is it possible to remove the hinges without the fluid? It's better to keep the gum if you can, and I would not trust the fluid to do it cleanly, at least in my experience. Also, if the hinges can't be removed cleanly without the fluid, you might try clipping them close to the stamp and placing a new hinge on top of what is left of the old. I sometimes do this by holding the stamp with tongs while it's still on the album page and using a small pocket knife to cut the hinge along its crease -- kind of like opening an envelop with the blade. If however, the stamps are old with layers of old hinges and do not have nice gum anyway, soaking them might be best.

One more thought, if the stamp is stuck to the page and you don't want the pages, try the fluid on the back of the page, first. If the result isn't good, you can then soak it later.

Ironhelm:

Sounds like you're about to walk down an age-old path .. hinge or mount ?

It's hard to justify spending 20 cents on a mount to hold a 2-cent stamp But some of us do it anyway because we prefer the appearance of the mounted stamps or to avoid the inconsistency of some hinged, some mounted on the same page.

At least, Modern_who's advice will help you get the stamps off their current page and ready to go in your new album.

Good luck,
Kirk

Thanks for the advice modern_who. Some of them were hinged with the old Dennisen hinges of yesteryear and came right off. Man, I so do miss those hinges. You'd thank someone would start making them again. They would corner the market. Cutting the hinge off is a good idea, but maybe its just me, but I don't like having someone elses spit on my stamps.

Interesting possiblities ...

..using DNA to identify every stamp that LASWABBIE has ever owned?
..stampdog having her dog lick her hinges
..stamps on ebay as belonging to President Roosevelt

Kirk

I understand, ironhelm, but consider that if the hinges are not easily removed you can consider said spit to be 'hermetically sealed' behind the hinge remnant and therefore possibly less offensive.

On the other hand, you can carefully remove the stamps wearing rubber gloves and soak them in a solution of Lysol disinfectant!

Sorry, I've been peeling too many old hinges, recently, and just though of this.

Good one Larry

"Dianne

My entire US collection are in mounts. A bit expensive but tthey look beautiful! My Australian collection mint/gummed are all in mounts, The rest are hinged. Awaiting Scott's leatheret binders to give my Aussys some class.

Thanks, Dianne. Keep smiling!