Cleaning Stamps With Peroxide

Here is a stamp that has damage on the upper left and an ugly, eye-drawing spot. I decided to try to improve the appearance by trying to remove the spot with peroxide cleaning. This one looked good to experiment on and here is the results. While the spot was not totally removed, the results are an improvement. Comments welcome.




EDIT: Plate position is 81L1L (inverted transfer).

Nice! Is the overall brightness the result of the process or a scan/photo artifact? I've not considered peroxide for general cleaning. Certainly worked well here.

The overall brightness came from the cleaning. I took the images within 15 minutes of each other with the same scanner. No image adjustment was made.

Calcium Hydroxide is the only safe method of removing stains. Notice the impression of this stamp is reduced, the color changed, yet the stains remain visible. Hydrogen peroxide is not safe to use in this manner.

I agree with Al.

Peroxide works to remove sulphuretting via a specific, well-known chemical reaction.

If the stamp isn't sulphuretted, which this wasn't, then you are just chemically altering the stamp design and, yes, also whatever other ink blobs and stuff might be on it.

I haven't done this myself, but I've heard people who left a stamp exposed to H2O2 (peroxide) too long, and they pretty much had a blank piece of stamp paper left, with no design on it.

I am thoroughly impressed with the results. Stain is 90% gone, paper dirty/smokey background cleaned, faded color restored, and details clearer. I see no negative impact on the stamp. All results were positive and better than expected.

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is oxygenated water. There is nothing but hydrogen and oxygen. There are no harsh chemical ingredients.

jaxom, not even close to the truth chemically. Hydrogen and oxygen, yes, but ...

How did you clean the patient? Brush on, rinse off?

I soaked it for about 3 minutes maximum.

Afterwards, since you immersed it, I'd blot it on removal and re-immerse immediately in water to fully stop the chemical reaction. Then re-blot and press overnight.

The reaction can keep going for a bit otherwise...you really have to hard-stop it. With the over-the-counter 3% H2O2, I guess its not as aggressive as the 20% I used to use, but still - make sure to apply water and re-blot to stop the reaction.

Realize, that what you did was to bleach the stamp, using a slightly more colorfast bleach than some others.

Its usually pretty easy to tell when a 1c stamp has been bleached. If you have a stock page of 20-30 1c stamps, the bleached one will be the bright blue one on white paper, and it will stand out/jump off the page at you vs the others. My point is, it creates an artificial color and appearance for the stamp. I won't argue that its somewhat pleasing, but its not a true color.

Even the sulphuretted 3c stamps, when treated with peroxide, can easily have their colors altered if you overdo it. For heavily sulphuretted 3c stamps, the H2O2 acts primarily as an Oxidizing agent and not as much of it goes into 'bleaching' the stamp, so the stamp color doesn't get as artificially altered as it did here usually.

Sorry, I have to laugh, this sounds like a Tide commercial.
Just kidding.

Txstamp, I thought your comment was funny. I was thinking of Purcell's wasabi & gojiberry add envisioning the spot on that particular stamp as the new stain. ..

Regarding cleaning AJ mentioned Calcium Chloride. What is the proper procedure for using that ingredient with H20.

Mike