Shelf Life Of Self Adhesive Stamps

A friend of mine showed me a booklet of self adhesive xmas stamps from several years ago. I was really surprised that the stamps would not remove from their backing paper - making them virtually useless since we know the post office frowns on stamps manually glued on envelopes. It made me uneasy about all of these self adhesive sheets I have been buying with the belief "well, worst case they are worth what I paid for them if I ever decided to use them for postage." Now I admit I cannot attest to the care given my friend's stamps - but is anyone else worried about the shelf life of these self adhesive stamps? Are they a bad long term purchase - does the adhesive become non removable? Has anyone seen examples of bad adhesive?

Scouter I have ones I been using that won't even stick to the envelopes! They're only 6 years old too!

Regarding the new self-adhesives, I have read something to the effect that the longer they remain on the backing paper, the harder it is to remove. Another issue is adhesive cold flow. Over time, the adhesive will ooze out from under the stamp and collect around the edges. I've experienced that with some self-adhesive Machins and other stamps. The stamps started to adhere to the clear strip of the Vario pages they were in. In that case, I put the stamp in a cut down mount, and put that in the Vario page. The stamp will adhere to the mount (which can be replaced periodically), and not the Vario page. Removing self-adhesive gum from the back side of a Vario clear strip is not something I want to do very often.

Robert

This concerns me - I have many of the sheets for their overall picture - like the nature series whatever that was called - if the adhesive is going to fail in many ways it makes me think I should not collect them??

This kind of thing makes me glad that I collect used stamps. Also, for a lot of countries, I stop actively collecting at around the year 2000 or so. There were plenty of self-adhesive stamps around before then, but it wasn't yet to the point it is today where practically all of them are SA.

There is a great article Pressure-Sensitive Adhesive United States Stampsat:
http://cool.conservation-us.org/byo...n23-605.html
It is very informative.

Excellent article ACANALIZO - and confirms some of my fears.

Great link, ACANALIZO! And welcome to SCF! Glad you're here!

ILS said:



Now we know the USPO definition of "Forever". Income preservation?

This thread has only strengthened my resolve not to collect these self adhesive stamps.

Terry

I think short term, the 6 year example, would be replaced by Kansas City if you sent them back with an explanation.
Tom

I stopped collecting new issues that look like stickers with straight edges and self-adhesive in contrast to traditional stamps with real hole perforations and water activated gum. Thus, what I may consider to be a real traditional stamp may not be the same as to what others consider it to be.

I had a bunch of older 1-cent self adhesive stamps (American Kestrels, as I recall) that I used for "make up" postage over time. I soon found they became more and more difficult to separate from the backing paper as time went on ... and discolored a bit, too. Since they were worthless (other than for face value postage) I used them up as quickly as possibly when I realized how difficult they became to use.

I think the technology (i.e. self adhesive stamp properties) has changed (improved?) a bit over time but whether or not it will stand the test of time over 50 or 100 years (i.e. a generation or two) into the future is anybody's guess.

The bottom line: If you like collecting modern issues and don't mind the self adhesive stamps, go for it (after all, there are no rules in stamp collecting). On the other hand, if you're intending to develop a quality collection that will be handed down to another generation, maybe it's time to re-think collecting modern self-adhesive issues. It really comes down to personal preference.

Here's a link to a rather interesting blog about the prolific number of new US stamp issues in self-adhesive format. If nothing else, a reality check into how much one can easily pay out for modern issues:

http://johnapfelbaum.blogspot.com/2...-issues.html

Yes I have had the problem buying self adhesive booklet from the last 13 years. More & more are as Trainwreck has described. The gum gets onto the face of the stamp and it will stick to the sellers packaging.

The gum is taken off our booklets and cancelled as CTO. It is such a blessing still having Australia S&A as water based gum.