Salvaging Old Packets

i got roughly 40 old stamp packets from an auction. From the Gray stamp company. The stamps are in the packets and without soaking may never come out. Gray put mint stamps in a glassine with a very pourous paper with identifying info. The Problem is all the mint stamps have stuck themselves to the ID slips.

They dont exactly qualify as a cover and have no value as mint. they can only ever be "Unused".

Would stamplift work? Or just soak 'em and press 'em?

Opinions??

Here is an example



Those are in there! Like Permanently!

Soak 'em and press 'em. Only rarely does packet material appreciate over the years.

THats kinda what I was thinking. I got about 40 of these from from 1879 to about 1947 all different countries

The Gray Stamp Company was one of the common approval companies from back in the day based in Canada. As suggested by others, the quality of the material (as packets) is typically low, so soaking the stamps will not diminish much of any value for you.

I saw an on-line ad from Popular Mechanics back in the 1920s when the Gray Stamp Company was marketing a packet of stamps for a mere two cents (of course, that covered postage and presumably approvals followed).

For some background on the Gray Stamp Company, which eventually evolved into the Empire Stamp Corporation, consider this ad from 1970:

Hi! Great article about the stamp companies of my youth!
On the packets....... In my experience, most of the packet stamps were common, easy to get stamps, and of course relatively inexpensive. For those stuck together, I would "soak em, press em, and mount em". They will serve you better in your album / stockbook than in an envelope. ENJOY !
Mobilman44