Best Watermark Detection?

Smelled pretty bad to. I had a whole pint of the stuff but disposed of it 10 or 15 years ago. Ronsonol works just fine.

I have used Clarity on thousands of stamps the past six years with excellent results.


http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/

I admit, I do value safety over cost.

Dumb question of the day: Is Ronsonol the only lighter fluid to use? What about other brands, like Zippo?

It also works. May be made by Ronsonol.

I believe Ronsonol is the safest one - no additives that may be harmful to the stamps.
Peter

other brands may, or many not, have other have added ingredients that may degrade the stamp.

Material Safety Data sheet on Ronsonol

http://www.local510.org/msds_sheets...nol_MSDS.pdf

https://images11.palcdn.com/hlr-sys..._25_2016.pdf

Hmm. My experience is that MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets) are written to protect certain proprietary formulations. In the example links provided by Jkjblue:

Ronson supplied Ronsonol CAS 64741-84-0, described as Aliphatic Hydrocarbon
Zippo supplied Ronsonol CAS 68410-97-9, described as Petroleum Distillate

They are probably similar, but not quite the same. (Slightly different densities, flash points, boiling points.) I would recommend testing on several low value stamps at first.

It is hard to test for impurities that degrade the stamp over time. I'd stick with the brand that is time tested.

What ever you do, do not use those plastic trays!

Obtain a black glass tray.

Or you can purchase at the hardware stores black ceramic tiles (also other colors), in the finish that works good for you. I find gloss works great, especially on the so called difficult single line U.S. watermarks. Yellow and red stamps show single line watermarks nicely.

The water marking process is also helpful to detect faults not visible!

More common and probably cheaper would be a black glass ashtray from a junk shop or flea market. Consider that you might want to watermark pairs, blocks, etc., so prefer a size that would hold more than one stamp.

What is the basic concept behind the Signnoscope? Is it equivalent to holding up a stamp to a strong light?

Very helpful posting! Thank you for the knowledge.

I have a heck of a time reading US watermarks. I find it especially hard to find them on used stamps. I recently began seriously collecting German Reich stamps. Wow! WMs are often so clear you can see them just by putting the stamp in the black tray. So I use Clarity for the Germans. It is safer and dries faster. I try clarity on the US stamps. If it doesn't work, I try Ronsonol. When that doesn't work, I kick myself and wish I had taken up knitting instead of stamps. No watermarks and by now I's have a bunch of mittens.

Don

I use black or amber glass vintage furniture coasters. They are cheap ($1-$2)and readily available on ebay or in some thirty shops.
Don