World Stamps Early 20th Century-How Should I Proceed?

And one from Lugate Circus (not mine, just copied it from Stanley Gibbons' site):

I venture to say those album pages are on acid paper and if some are yellowed as you say, you would want to move the stamps to a new environment which won't continue to damage them. But a few weeks won't matter in the big scheme of things so you have time to plan the operation.

What you have shown are all from the century before self-adhesive stamps gummed everything up. So I think you can soak them. There are a few categories of stamps which you do NOT want to soak. From another thread on soaking hinged stamps, these include early Netherlands Indies and early English revenue stamps. There could be others so folks should chime in. And with those particular categories, get folks here to have a look before your do those pages

It would be good to have a destination ready for the soaked stamps as they are dried, so you dont have a pile of them just sitting, damaging the perforations. If you do have an album in mind, there are various threads on hinges (the old discontinued Dennison hinges are considered the best by most of us) and on mounts, that would help in that regard. You could also slide them into a stock book for now, until you get an album going. Always good to have a stock book to help organize or hold thing indefinitely….

Re soaking, there are threads on this — bottom line,
Use cool water and change the water as you go, taking your time in time in batches, then carefully drying, etc. consult those threads for best practices….

Yes Stephen,
most early GB stamps, inscribed "Postage and Revenue" carried out dual roles.
Hand script cancellations generally suggest Fiscal use.

Rod,

I think that you will find it is not only early GB stamps that had a dual purpose. I think it continued long after GB dropped the word from the stamps. My grandparents' first mortgage in the mid 30's had stamps attached as stamp duty paid. I remember in the late 70's going to the post office to purchase a TV license which also had postage stamps attached.

Jleb, Thank you for the great tips. I am definitely going to have a temp stock book for a while until I get some design plan firmed up in my mind. I am going to do just what you suggest, after hearing your thoughts and doing a lot of searching on this site. I'll carefully soak the used ones off, and the new ones I will carefully lift and snip. I also will try the rubbing method (which, from what I have read, is only moderately effective.

Rod, as always, thanks for your insight. I'm getting the bug bad!

I've got to disagree with several of the others. The album pages are obviously acidic and yellowing, when that album was new the pages were a fairly bright white. The acid transfers to the stamp paper which can make the stamps friable. I'd take the stamp and hinge off in one piece, then soak all the used ones in room temperature water. Once the hinge floats free carefully rub the back to make sure any residual gum is gone then place the stamp face down on a paper towel. When they are dry enough that they start to curl place them between pieces of paper, or pages in a book, then weight it down in a stack. Leave them alone for a couple of weeks and you will have clean flat stamps to move to a stockbook or to archival pages. For the unused stamps, if the gum is already off the back treat them the same as the used, if the gum is still there carefully slice the hinge flap off and leave the rest of the hinge still attached and without soaking place them between pages of paper and weight it down just as you do with the used. They'll be ready for better mounting after a few days to help them stay flat.
The damaged ones you can decide for yourself how much effort to go to. They can often be made more presentable, but since we're talking about value of well under a cent each they are likely not worth the trouble. Set them aside for doing a collage on the outside of a cigar box. :)

Thank you Chesham.
Interesting, I do not recall ever reading information as to when / if
dual purpose use of GB stamps, expired, if at all.
Someone here should know.

If not, why have GB Revenues stamps at all

In some cases, the issue of dual-purpose stamps created problems regarding the division of income between the post office and the treasury.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posta...evenue_stamp

It depends on what stamp you refer to. From 1881, 1d stamps became valid as proof of receipt of certain revenues and affixed to documents. The current 1d revenue stamps also became valid for postage. Thereafter more values became valid for this purpose.

The stamp overprinted "IR Official," as suggested by the overprint was for official use. Government departments were allowed free carriage of mail between the main office and local offices. Stamps were supplied by the General Post Office. They were overprinted with the name of the department to which they were issued and the word official for accounting purposes. These stamps were forbidden to be owned by private persons.

The stamps overprinted "IR Official" were used for correspondence between Inland Revenue offices throughout the UK. Interestingly, these are stamps you can be quite certain were not used to pay revenue.




The first statement is correct. The second, partially is correct. The last statement is doubtful. You could buy TV licence (savings) stamps from the post office. Those were not valid for postal use.

And here is why:




1968



Correct, until 1968.




Yes and no. The word was not always printed on stamps up to 1968. However, the Wildings that were in use until 1968 (and regional Wildings until 1971) did include the word up to the end, hence even after the use was ended in 1968.



The late 70's was after the validity of postage stamps for payment of tax. You might be describing TV licensing savings stamps.

"Interestingly, these are stamps you can be quite certain were not used to pay revenue."

There's some irony!

Thanks for the info. Great stuff.