Tips For Soaking Stamps Off Colored Envelopes?

Just tried hot water with salt on an auto-adhesive stamp, a few minutes and it came off without stains.

Klaus

I think the unknown variable in the German stamps is the quality of the red paper.
Tom

When everyone says salt, how much salt is used please?

Here's a link to a stamps.org article that recommends 1 tablespoon of salt to 1/3 cup water.

The PDF has interesting info on stamp and paper composition, soaking techniques, etc. Much of it is repeating what our experts have already said, but well worth a look.

http://stamps.org/userfiles/file/pc...idiary_2.pdf

I didn't start this post but I wanted to thank you for all this good information. Being new here and a beginner stamp collector I was also wondering these questions. I enjoy looking around on the forums and finding new information.

When I fill one side of my sink to soak, I use 2 or 3 heaping tablespoons.

Has anyone used baking soda to make the stamp alkaline? On the surface my brain is telling me that this makes sense.
Tom

Sdtom, that's an interesting option. My only hesitation on testing it would be the possible tendency to bleach older more soft-like paper stamps. When you raise alkalinity that tends to happen with certain materials. I worked on custom aquariums for years and a lot of the saltwater products are alkaline and can damage materials fairly easily.

Alkalinity is as potent as acidity in it's own right, being on the opposite end of the spectrum. There's even evidence to suggest that a person consuming alkaline products will alter their body's chemistry and inhibit/prevent cancerous cell development.

I would urge anyone testing this method to use it on common stamps first. And please, let us know how this goes!

Hi Nells

As far as I'm concerned many coloured envelopes
I get with stamps on them go up the fireplace chimney.
It's just not worth the effort to soak them.

Awhile back I was soaking some stamps including nice Austrian SS
when I noticed that the ink from a coloured paper was bleeding on one of the souvenir sheets.
I immediately but it in a bowl of fresh water but the damage
was done. I just crumbled it up, garbage it went.

Now I either just save the whole envelope ( I'm getting more
into postal history for the last few years) or up the chimney it goes.
It's cold up here in Canada, we need the heat.

I'm going to give the baking soda a try on some no value stamps. We might be onto something.
Tom

If you figure out a specific pH or hardness level, that can also be useful. But that would require testing and reagents, which can become costly.

I was just looking at a 1959 Harris catalog and noticed an ad for Stamplift. One thing we hadn't discussed in this thread is the use of a sweat box. There are plenty of instructions on line that explain how to make your own.

Totally unrelated, the catalog had a hinge dispenser that used boxed hinges. I've never seen one of these before, but it supposedly dispenses hinges one at a time.

water no matter the temp will remove the gum. I personally like the cullender/sieve idea personally! Ingenious!

I have my moments. They're few and far between, but they're there.