How Far Do You Go To Clean Up Old Stamps?

With hundreds of stamps arriving every month, I have trouble keeping up with my acquisitions. As mentioned on another thread, many of my purchases come from older collections.

I'm wondering how much work you do to clean up stamps from older or other collections? For used stamps, I will soak any stamps with paper remnants but just don't have the time to remove every hinge remnant unless the stamp is heavily hinged in which case I will give it a good cleaning.

I'll soak them in lukewarm water with a few drops of mild dishwashing liquid. Then a couple of minute rinse in clear lukewarm water. That's the extent of what I've done. How about others?

I give used stamps a soak to remove any old hinges and loose dust etc that will come off. Unused ofc is a lot trickier, just have to look for the "freshest" copy, and any thinned stamps due to previous owners are sent to the circular file.

Like southpaw I soak in hand warm water with a squirt of dish liquid mixed in, but with a finishing soak in cold water to re-harden the softened paper fibres. Less likelihood of damage when stamps are subsequently handled. I only do small batches at a time and don't soak any stamps that might suffer colour runs.

Terry