Tips For Soaking Stamps Off Colored Envelopes?

Hello all

I've always wondered what folks do when they have stamps they want to soak off of colored envelopes. You know, those red, pink, or purple greeting card envelopes, etc. The dyes always run and stain the stamps.

To some folks, this may be a silly question, but I'd like to know what people KNOW works to get the stamps off these papers without staining. I would think that any dampness would make the dyes run.

JD

For me I've tried to go slow. One at a time, and then get the stamp off of the colored paper as quick a possible. If it was one of the new adhesives any naphtha based product should work to loosen it up without the color coming off.

Warm water; very few stamps at a time and change the water as soon as you see it starting to discolour. Rinse the stamps in clear water after soaking. Basically, the same answer as Vacuum man.

Here's a tip from the APS:


I hadn't thought of doing a "spot test" before.

I'm new to this but have been testing different methods and so far the one that works best for me is pretty simple.

Just use a large water source, such as a quart-sized bowl or bigger, and slowly move the stamp around in the water as it soaks. I haven't had any staining yet from this method and I think there's enough water to allow any dyes the ability to dilute before it becomes an issue. I usually make the water just slightly warmer than room temperature.

When sorting kiloware I now put them into the reject pile!

If there is an expensive stamp on coloured paper I do as has already been mentioned to get them off paper.

I've found so far that the stamps on the colored material are all very common easy to obtain such as hearts and love stamps.
Tom

SDTOM - I have a red envelope here with 2 nice German stamps on it... can't just go to the PO and get those!

;-)

Interesting that so far the only tips have been to simply keep the water moving, hence washing away the dyes. I don't see how that works, though, as the paper is still getting wet, and so is the stamp. I'll keep it in mind, though.

There was an earlier discussion about using a stamp lifter fluid rather than water. Just apply some to the back of the envelope and the stamp should lift right off. It's possible a product like this would not affect ink. It is expensive, and I would test it on common stamps first. No posts from anyone who has actually tried it.

https://goscf.com/t/34971

I usually soak 10 or 12 stamps at a time...when soaking off colored paper I just do one at a time. Water doesn't cost much, so I'll change it after only one or two stamps, or at any time if the water shows ANY sign of discoloration.

Nells, in my thinking I view the ink as tiny pigments/particles. If the water is voluminous enough (big water dish) and moving enough then the particles will have less chance of landing on something. Now if you were to just dump it in an ink puddle, yeah that'd be bad no matter how deep or moving the water is. But if it's not too bad it shouldn't be a big deal. So far I'm batting 100% on my colored paper removal. Only issues I've run across are stamps falling apart due to tiny tears from the envelope having spread over.

The concept for my method actually came from my college biology class. 'The solution to pollution is dilution' is a statement my teacher used to tell me back in the day. Same thing applies to an aquarium (my previous career was as a design/installation tech for an aquarium company). The more water you had, the slower pollution would build in a tank making water cleanings and filtration easier. So I just applied that same line of thought to my stamp process and it seems to be working.

Buck49 is also correct...only do 1 or two colored paper pieces at a time. Try to match shades as best as possible when sorting as well.

Has anyone tried removing stamps from coloured paper under warm running water? It's a "waste" of water and energy to do a lot of them, but for an important stamp . . .

Thats a thought. You could place it in a sieve and run water over it that way.

Today I had my first color casualty. Well, it was already stained form the envelope to begin with, appeared to have gotten raindrops on it sometime in the distant past. So I tested it individually in the bowl of water and the envelope immediately started leaching red. The other red, orange and pink colored papers I've already encountered weren't this bad, I'm thinking it may be cheap paper. Most of the reds I've done haven't bled at all, and the manila envelopes seem to be more prone to discoloration.

If you have the whole envelope you can test a piece of the red paper to see how much it bleeds. Are the stamps self adhesive? If they are you might want to keep the paper attached. I too think the key is to do one at a time in a larger quantity of slightly warm water.
Tom

Interesting that you guys are suggesting warm water rather than cold.. typically in the world of dyes, warm water is what makes the colors run, similar to doing the laundry, you never do darks or colors in hot water. I've never tested hot vs cold, I've always used cold and RINSED in warm and it works fine, doing one by one in a large volume container. Another trick in the world of laundry is to add salt and a cup of vinegar to the wash to help stop color bleeding, no idea what that would do for stamps or colored envelopes. Either way, make sure you rinse in warm.

Good luck!
Dan

Some interesting stuff here, folks!

Cold water vs warm is also interesting. Yes, the cold is better for the dyes, but warm always seems to soften adhesives better. Catch22!