Remove Used Self Adhesive US Stamps From Paper Or Not??

Well I have a bunch of US stamps that are on paper and I have a decision to make. I want to mount them in my album and need to figure out do I go through the time of removing them off the paper or just trim close to the stamp and call it a day.

I have removed them off paper a few times with the citrus spray and powder. It's a pain and seems like a lot of work for the amount of stamps I have to do. On the other hand I want to have a nice album and do it right the first time.

So what do others do out there?

For my own stamps, that I want to display in my album, to me it's worth going through them one at a time to remove them from their backing paper with the orange citrus spray, and scraping the gum residue off with a credit card or other straight edge. They simply look so much better that way, in my opinion.

I am new to collecting and just trim and mount. I would be interested in others answers to this

Good question I'm curious about that also ~ Maria

Article on how to remove self-adhesive stamps:

http://stamps.org/userfiles/file/Ho...dhesives.pdf

Thanks ! Everyone is so very helpful ~ Maria

Scott says that used examples of self-adhesive stamps can either be off or on piece (i.e., removed from paper or not).

"Values for used self-adhesive stamps are for examples either on piece or off piece."

(This is from "Understanding the Listings" -- item 9: "Value unused and Value used". Page 14A in the 2017 volumes.)

And this is slightly off topic from the original poster's question, but Scott also says for unused self-adhesive stamps that they are valued as if the stamps have not been removed from their original backing paper.

"Unused self-adhesive stamps are valued as appearing undisturbed on their original backing paper." (Same citation as above.)

A related question. If the value for used self-adhesive stamps is the same whether removed from cover or not, would that remain true if it was kept on cover, trimmed, and then mounted with a hinge? And then what about unused stamps that have not been removed from their adhesive backing? Would use of a hinge reduce its value in that case? It seems to me that it shouldn't, since the hinge is not affecting the stamp itself. But a purist might say that it could not be described as "MNH."

Any thoughts about this?

Basil

For the used USA stamps I put in my album I remove them from the paper by either water soak or using lighter fluid. In addition to looking better - I can see the perfs/die cuts much better when they are removed from paper - they are not as thick so will not make the album as bulky. For the used USA dupes I keep on hand for trading, I usually leave on paper.

Dave N.

Every stamp that is good enough to be put in a collection has the self-adhesive material completely removed with lighter fluid.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I guess I will take them off paper. I use the citrus air freshener. I'm going to take the paper off them so I can use my stockbook for my dups.

I tried removing 32 cent stamps from paper and some wouldn't come off. What denomination of US stamps goes from soaking them off on paper to taking them off with citrus spray?

Thanks!

US first use of self adhesive stamps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-adhesive_stamp

It is really a matter of preference. As far as I'm concerned, the stamp should be removed from the paper.

StampsInNJ,

The use of self adhesives that are not water soluble did no happen to all USA stamps at the same time so there is not one particular stamp that was the last water soluble and then from then on you have to use lighter fluid/citrus. Of course all the lick and stick can be soaked off. There are some self adhesive USA stamps that can be soaked off too. There have been atempts to make lists of "soakability" of USA self adhesive stamps. I think the Virtual Stamp Club indicates the stamps's soakability or at least they used to. And I think I saw somewhere that the 2014 Scott USA specialized catalog started showing soakability, but I'm not sure about that. There are other sites out there that try to list soakability...

Dave