Stamps With Full Cancel Marks

Would it be better to leave these on paper or soak them off?

Much better left on IMO

Well it really depends on your collecting preferences. The general "rule of thumb" is to leave stamps on the full document or piece, but as these was already torn and/or cut from Their covers you could soak them off for singles, but then you would lose any history contained in the CDS (Circular Date Stamp).

When I asked this question, I was told (and have seen repeated many times) NOT to soak the stamps unless you're absolutely sure you don't want those cancels. As ILS said above, you would lose the history associated with the CDS - you can't go back.

My suggestion is to trim them as neatly as possible, while not losing any of the cancels.
That is what I usually do when I have a stamp in piece with a nice cancel.

A full, complete and readable cancel or postmark usually is preferable to one that is not full, and clearly readable.

However, as a person's collecting interests evolve, most people find that they want to collect more than the stamp itself and long for a piece of history, a recording of where the stamp has done it's service or duty and the routes travelled by the cover or envelope or lettre.

Thus the beginning of cancel collecting.

Cancels can be collecting just on the stamps themselves, making the collecting a hunt for the perfect socked on the nose cancels on nice;y centered stamps.

Or, collecting pieces of covers or wrappings of parcels that have readable or mostly readable cancels on them.

Or, to progress even further, collecting complete covers or entire pieces of postal history.


When you reach the cancel appreciating stage the full cover is desirable but pieces of cancels or stamps on piece with nice cancels will form a collection, perhaps of states or provinces, perhaps of a time range of postmarks from certain regions or cities or whole countries or time frames.

Sometimes the fancy cancel, the official cancel, the special auxiliary markings found on mail pieces, the special event or first day of issue cancels attract interest.

But when you start to be interested in a country's postal history, or even a state's or province's, the scope of your project expands immeasurably and you want an example of anything and everything.

Kind of like collecting world stamps and then slowing down and then speeding up again in a similar but differeb direction.

Since most people, I think anyway, re into collecting stamps, with cancels as a sideline, then the interest of these is somewhat limited, but only by your imagination.

For example, you could have a page displaying a certain series of stamps and then examples of cancels (full, readable) of that series on the same page or a facing page.

Colour commentary so to speak. Helps to make the colelction real and brings the meaning home. Easier and usually cheaper than collecting full covers also.