Hinged Vs Hingless Question

Many years ago, when I was young, I collected stamps and I always had hingless general stock albums. I also had my mother's pre-WWII hinged collection, and I attributed "hinged" to being poor and not being able to get a hingeless album during the war. Then I left the USSR and had to leave my own collection there (for a fear of confiscation at the border, the guards knew one was not in a position to argue). Then I bought a bunch of old hinged albums here in the States. I got nice new German hingless albums and decided to populate them with the stamps from hinged albums. Now, some stamps got glued real well (humidity?) to the albums' pages. What to do? 3 choices: try to remove them and face potential damage, leave them alone or destroy the pages by wetting them to remove the stamps. Any suggestions?

Where I've run into that problem I've bitten the bullet and soaked them off. You try to remove otherwise and you could damage them worse.

I would think it would depend on the stamps. I suspect you are referring to stockbooks? I would say the stockbooks are already ruined. The question is, is it worth it to sweat and soak the stamps to salvage them.

I haven't run into that problem, but I would save the stamps, not the album. Just my opinion...

Febreze should take them out safely. It is a room deodorizer and I use it now exclusively to remove stamps, even the new permanent ones. Works like a charm. Water based stamps slide off after a few minutes. It is available in Canada at Shopper's Drug Mart, and is currently on sale at about $3.50
Canadian Tire also carries it, and presumedly so do other places. With a try.

I've found that steaming works really well to loosen the stamps. You don't lose all the gum , which you do with soaking, so a mint stamp remains mint with gum. The hinge is also easier to remove when the stamp is steamed, but remember to do it immediately after you have removed the stamp from the paper or you will certainly damage the stamp. The stamps get a bit curly after steaming, so let them dry off for about 20 minutes gum side up, then press them for a couple of days or so between blotting paper (sorry guys, I still use this) or kitchen towel. I don't know the trick with room deodoriser but it also sounds neat.

But, and this is a big one, if you have the stamps in one of the Behrens printed albums, my advice is leave them in the album. They just look good in these albums, and I am sure they enhance the value of the collection.

Febreeze ?!?!?!?! Well at least they would smell good!