Beginining A New Classical Collection

Good morning friends!



Jim or anybody care to pen their thoughts on the soaking process ? How long should I soak stamps for? Does the time to soak depend on the type of paper/printing process/ink/temperature etc?

Soaking time depends more on what is stuck to the back and how/what adhesive it's stuck with. Non-peelable "peelable" hinges usually come off and float to the surface after a minute or two. Old hinges made from tiny strips of gummed selvage or a stamp still on envelope paper may take five minutes or more. Some kinds of glue may take much longer. You don't want to leave them in water longer than you have to but on the other hand, you DO want to be sure the glue, strong or weak as it may be, has been thoroughly dissolved so that, if the paper or hinge has not actually floated off, it is so loose that tongs very carefully inserted between stamp paper and adhered paper can separate the two papers with no damage to the stamp.

Stamp paper is very vulnerable when very wet so at the slightest hint of resistance, back off and let it soak longer.

You can, of course, just wait 20 minutes until the tough ones float free. But it can happen that the backing paper is actually totally loose, just lying there ready to be split from the stamp, but appears to be still stuck on and you really don't want to keep stamps lying in water longer than you have to. The only way to find out is very cautiously to test with the tongs.

Room temperature or very lukewarm water is best for soaking. I use water that's gone through a Brita filter because our city tap water is heavily (and I mean heavily) chlorinated.

A blotting or drying book ("Desert Magic" brand or comparable) is very valuable for achieving fast and flat drying. But even though a stamp appears completely dry after 3 or 4 hours in a Desert Magic book, I always wait 24-48 hours before putting them in plastic mounts. I want absolutely all the moisture out. Those using hinges don't have to be so careful because they are not enclosing the stamp in plastic. (Mounts are NOT airtight but still, I want the stamp completely dry first--anything one can do to forestall mold, foxing, toning, should be done.)

Soaking also can wash away some surface dirt. Some people add a bit of mild detergent to help. If cleansing is part of your purpose, then you might want to soak longer than is necessary merely to get a non-peelable "peelable" hinge off. But wet stamps are vulnerable, so "scrubbing" them to clean them up needs to be very gentle.

Hieronymous I have had pretty good results with your method. I am slicing the hinge off and leaving the stamp with a hinge remnant. I then modified the method a bit by making a sweatbox andleaving the hinged stamps in it for 30 minutes or so. Some stamps do require more time. Now the hinges are peeling off the stamps pretty easily leaving the gum behind. I then placed the slightly wet stamps in my desert magic drying book which arrived yesterday. Will let you all know how that turns out. I plan to keep it in the book for 48 hrs as recommended by you.

The words "soaking" and "classical collection" make me shudder! Of course, you can do what you please but I would highly recommend NOT soaking any classic stamp especially if they are still on the cover or piece. Best wishes and happy stamping!

I love stamps
I am now a little confused. Should I avoid trying to soak classical stamps ?
I did not have to soak anything yet. If its a small hinge remnant I let it be otherwise I am using the sweatbox for the unsightly looking one.
I am definitely leaving the ones on cover be. I figure the stamp and cover have a much better story to tell when they are together.

aragorn

To I Love Stamps

You might look at Aragorn's question that begins the thread. He was asking how best to remove stamps from albums. The thread begins with methods for taking stamps off album pages, then Aragorn asked for specifics about soaking, since he had been cautioned regarding aniline dyes.

The thread has nothing to do with stamps on cover or on piece. A stamp on cover or on piece and a stamp with a hinge are mutually exclusive categories.

Soaking a used stamp in clean, fresh water to remove hinges and/or surface dirt has been practiced by collectors for generations. Which is why jkjblue warned about non-colorfast dyes on a some stamps. If it were standard practice never to soak old stamps, there'd be no need for warnings about the rare issues that should not be soaked.

Most of us leave hinges on mog stamps but some people use sweatboxes. I would NOT use even a sweatbox for the Dutch Indies anilines or the late Victorian GB or any of the other fugitive inks. Leave all aniline and fugitive ink stamps alone.

I should add that alongside stamps printed with aniline ink, the soaking of any stamps listed in catalogues as printed on "chalky paper" (common in British Commonwealth stamps of the Edward VII and George V eras) should be avoided. "Chalky" actually refers to a smooth chalk coating on the pre-printed paper that makes it shiny; the coating was intended to come off at least partially and take some of the design with it if someone tried to remove the cancel and reuse the stamp.

Morning all.
Ran into a new issue. I got a bunch of US scott pages( 1900-1950s) along with one of my purchases. Unfortunately the majority of the stamps are stuck down on the pages ( overzealous hinging on the part of the previous owner , no additional glue). Unfortunately I do need a few for my collection. What should I do?
aragorn

It depends. If they are mint stamps stuck merely because humidity has caused the gum to cling slightly to the album page, sometimes the stamp will pop loose if you flex or curl the page back and forth under the stamp. This sometime will also work if the problem is "fat finger hinging" where a speck of moisture outside the hinge area has stuck the gum down in a small spot--sometimes flexing the paper or sliding tongs under the stamp at a loose spot and pushing against the adhesion spot will pop it free. But be really, really careful. All too often the adhesion is larger than you hope/think and you end up, impatient to get it off, causing a thin in the stamp.

If none of the above work, then steaming or Stamp Lift (brand name) fluid may work. Stamp Lift fluid has to be applied sparingly from the BACK of the album page, so that it can work through the paper just enough to soften the gum enough to pull the stamp free. but the gum may will usually have been damaged--better than no gum at all but . . .

If they are really stuck solid, there's almost no choice but to sacrifice the gum by soaking them off the paper (cut around each stamp so you aren't trying to soak the whole page). They still look nice in YOUR album from the front but are now "unused" rather than mint original gum and worth less.

Thanks Hieronymous.
I was able to pop off some of them by gently manipulating with the tongs but looks like I will have to cut and soak the rest. Ugh.
Aragorn