The World's Fastest Stamp Tearers.

Team Germany: The winners. Circa Mid Eighties
(Children do not try this at home on Dad's stamps)

I thought this would be another "bad stamp hinge" thread

But what did they do with the stamps afterwards???

Another story about Stanley Gibbons "peelable" hinges?

What did they do with them after?-They ended up in my collection

I would hazard a guess they were these (looks like "printed-on" cancels)

Round 2 of the competition was to lick off all the gum, so the stamps appeared postally-used

Seriously, an interesting idea for a competition -- anything to stir interest in the hobby is a good thing.

[edit to fix typo]

Wow! Interesting. And I'm nervous tearing one sheet apart. I have a slightly funny story about that.

John, the friend I work for had a bunch of sheets of Disney stamps that he needed tearing apart. I was doing them one sheet at a time. He wasn't in a hurry, and I was getting them done. John didn't care how fast they were done, it was just something that had to be done eventually, but at no special time.
Anyhow John came into the room and saw me doing the one sheet. He suggested that I do a bunch at a time. I said I was worried about ripping the stamps, so he picked up 6 or 7 sheets to show me how easy it was. He folded them back and forth on the perf line a few times and then gave them a bit of a tug at the top of the sheet to get the tear started, the tore them down the perfs. Well at least the top 2 or 3 sheets went down the perfs. The rest were ripped down about a quarter of the way into the stamp.
He just looked at them, shook his head, and said, "Well, maybe one or two sheets at a time is better." Then he left the room.

Costly Experience