HI All Couple Of Questions About Gum

Hi all I just recently bought a stamp collection with a few thousand loose world stamps. I have only been collecting for about a year and have found this until now. Loads of them have been franked but they appear to have full original gum on them I have checked them with a microscope and cant find any evidence to show they have been re gummed.
I am sure I am just being stupid but some help explaining it would be awesome.
Thanks.

There are a few possibilities for stamps that appear cancelled, but have gum.

Possibility 1 Precancels - These are stamps that are marked in such a way that they are already cancelled before they are ever placed on envelopes. In some countries precancels look more like regular cancels than in others.

Possibility 2 CTO - In some countries stamps were Cancelled To Order (or CTO) to make the stamp look postally used. These stamps are usually (though not exclusively) never applied to an envelope and therefore maintain full original gum.

If you can, please show us a picture of your stamp and we might be able to give a more clear indication of what you have.

Hi yes I will post some pics shortly thank you for your reply it makes sense I have seen them before just did not click.
i maybe have about a thousand like that though. I will take a few pics.

"Cancelled-to-Order" is extremely prevalent on the pictorials of Eastern Europe and Africa, especially from the 1950s through the 1980s; some genuinely postally-used bring a premium price, and the Scott Catalog often points this out.

Here are a few pics. Not the best sorry best I could do with what I have to hand.

My guess is cto.

I am thinking this is the case the more I look at but I thought the cancels would be a bit more prominent. Or is that the point to look like they have been used.

Yes, that is the point, to make them look postally used. Every stamp you have featured thus far has been a CTO. Yours appear to have been made, at least in some cases, with genuine cancelling devices. Some CTOs were actually overprinted with a "cancel" on a printing press.

Thanks for all the help. I have a few questions about a couple of other stamps but I cant find where they are right now so when I do I will be sure to ask on here.

I have found that one way to spot a CTO is that the cancellation is in a corner of the stamp and usually in a corner where the cancellation does not intrude upon the major part of the image.

I would say that all of the stamps you showed are CTOs.

Donald