Removing Stamps From An Album

I recently got an older album off of ebay. Most of the stamps are hinged, but there are several that are adhered in some other fashion. What do you suggest I use to remove these stamps from the album pages? I plan on soaking them first to see if that works. If it doesn't what would be the next choice?

Hi,
I've picked up several albums during the last year, and have seen all degrees of "stamp stick to ittivity" - from the very easy Dennison hinge removal to the difficult white adhesive looking hinges.....

Of course if you can't get them off the page (many hinges seem to peel from the stamp but not the album page), then the next step is to soak them. I would cut as much paper away as I can, and soak in very warm (not hot) water. After ten minutes, most will come clean easily.

But, some just won't give up their hold, and I have had to work with them with tweezers and repeated soakings.

Sadly, I've lost some because they were either glued or the oil(?) in the hinge material tainted the stamp. For the most part, these are just non-recoverable...........

I agree that soaking is the best answer; and sometime, just leave well enough alone and just put on a new hinge.

Over the past 30 years, I've bought a number of old albums. In addition to the usual glassine hinges, I've also encountered paper hinges; adhesive "dots" of the kind found normally in stationary or office supply stores; and even some usage of the old clear tape from the 1970s that was better than Scotch tape because it didn't stain. Years later, no stain, but a devil of a time in getting the tape off. As MobilMan says, those were generally not recoverable. Fortunately, only the most common stamps had the tape job.

How and where the albums were stored were also issues. But that's not what the thread is about.

as tricky as hinges can be, I still think nothing is worse than trying to liberate stamps from album pages where the collector used the old Crystal Mounts, and decided that to make sure the stamps were absolutely secure, entombed the stamps in a mount with all 4 sides folded in. With some I just simply ignore looking at the stamps as candidates to purchase. I buy from Bellmore Philatelic and use their in-home stamp store service, which overall is a great service for buying stamps on approval, though some of the albums they send have stamps mounted with the evil Crystal mounts manipulated to ensure that the stamp never comes in contact with the outside world ever ever again.

Thanks for the feedback. I will let you know how it works out. I have not had the chance to work on it yet