Stamp Restoration ANS Conservation

With many classic stamps been over 100 years old, one day the philatelist's community will have to turn to restoration or conservation to preserve the stamps. Acid burn damages stamps, some are more affected than other, but they will eventually been. Gum also deteriorates some stamps, a good example is the Austrian revenue, and collectors of them know it and remove the gum on some 19th mint stamps.
We will need to neutralize the acidity of very old stamps, can the gum affect the process, can some ink been destroy in the process, possibly, this is why research have to start today. This is conservation

Now if someone want to get the stamps to his mint state, reguming may be necessary after acid neutralization. Teeth maybe repair, crack or crease too. No some may call it alteration, it's a matter of opinion and mostly for what purpose it was done. I will have 0 issue to purchase such a stamp if I now it is,

We restore and preserve old book and painting, time is to start to think what we will do to save our stamps. Because I see many classic stamps with sign on acidity burn.

Keep in mind, I don't sell and don't intend to sell my stamps, I want to preserve them form many future generations.

Personally, I have no issue with stamp and cover restoration, i.e. repair, if it disclosed when the stamp is sold. But it certainly enters into my determination of the price I'm willing to pay for the item.3

Q/ Why is it that the cleaning & repair of stamps & coins brings such seething disdain, when for so many other collectibles the same services are considered responsible & routine?

I suspect this has to do with numbers. There are, in most cases, many copies of any given stamp, so the people who have nice copies can all insist that it is a sin for you to improve your copy, thus preserving their advantage.

That algebra does not work as well with furniture (as no one wants the breakfront to fall and, well, break) or with paintings (each a singularity) or with ...

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

IkeyPikey has hit the nail on the head: the validity of conservation and restoration rests on the uniqueness or the multiplicity of an object. There are a few stamps, though, that are unique or nearly so. Would it be justified, then, to use conservation applications and techniques with the unique 1856 British Guiana, if it began to become derelict, due to aging (all paper deteriorates over time, even under careful supervision)or some other cause? Would conservation of other stamps known in only a few copies be acceptable and thus legitimate to the world of philately? If so, where should the dividing line fall, in terms of the number of extant copies, that would justify conservation, with stamps on the other side of that line made pariahs if they had been conserved?

I think we're mixing a lot of different issues here. Altering a stamp is different then repairing a stamp which is different then cleaning a stamp which may be different then conserving a stamp.

If a stamp had work done on its perfs as repair, why shouldn't that affect its value. A rare vase with a chip gets repaired, of course that affects the value compared to a stamp with no repairs.
Ikey, your example; sure that table is worth more after it's repaired but not more than one that was never repaired.

Something that is one of a kind, like a painting, how can you judge if repairs affect its value. You can't un repair it and compare sale prices. But it doesn't take a giant leap of logic to think the same painting, never needing repair is more valuable monetarily.

Maybe I'm not getting the point here...

A repair stamp should have a value between a damage one and a non damage one depending on the quality of the work

Let say you have a fine stamps with a value of $1000 and a space filler copy of the same stamp with people's offering $ 100 for it. So if someone make a nice professional repair it will be faire to ask let's say $200 . No I'm sure many people's ho can't afford a $1000 stamp will be happy to have the repair one @ 20% of the value and not looking ugly like a space filler

I'm talking street price here not cv. So the $1000 stamp may in fact have a cv value of $2000 leaving the repair @10% of the cv value

For ethical reason and Advertizing a repair specialist can make a note at the back saying repair by......

Agree ^^^

You're doing fine. It seems that, with Ming vases, an expert repair adds to the value. Take two near-identical vases, with two near-identical chips, and the vase with the expertly repaired chip commands a higher price. The repair adds value.

With the vast majority of stamps, an expert repair - these days - seems to detract from the value of that individual stamp.

You'll notice that we are much more forgiving about covers, which are necessarily more individualized. Many auction lots note that a stamp was 'lifted' from a cover, usually to check the watermark and/or grill.

Presumably, the stamp was then re-attached, and with a non-period adhesive, to boot. I do not know enough about the cover market to know, but I am going to SWAG it (take a silly wild-assed guess) that this matters not one twit, even though the stamp might be more securely attached than it was before.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Restoration means "bringing back to a former position or condition" (Webster's). Someone decides the most desirable state of an item and then they alter its current condition. The objective is predominately about improving the item's current appearance. So doing things like reperfs, regumming, repairs are indisputably considered a restoration. And as other have mentioned, doing a restoration on an item and then selling it without disclosing the restoration is very close to fraud. These are significant alterations to an item and documenting/disclosing them is important.

Preservation means preventing destruction of an item and making sure the item is not irreversibility altered or changed. Unlike restoration, with preservation the condition of an item is not usually the objective. Rather the objective is conserving the maximum original amount of the item. During a preservation the condition of an item may or may not be improved. Soaking a used stamp in clean, clear water is a form of preservation since it does not irreversibility alter or change the stamp. (Yes, it may be that the soak was intended to simply help the items condition or appearance but it did not include any irreversible alterations.)

So the key concept here is not if an item's condition is or isn't improved; it is about the level of change.

From a legal perspective deciding to do either a restoration or a preservation is a personal property right. Folks can do whatever they want to do with their own property. From an ethical perspective we have to consider what is best as stewards of our historical items. My own opinion is that from this context we should be considering preservation processes.

So the ethically correct process to do with a stamp like the unique 1856 British Guiana would be preservation, not restoration. But the sad truth is that preserving its current condition results in a pretty sad looking stamp, it is hard to even see the stamp's design at this point. This stamp may well indeed be worth more in a restored state where the design could be more readily visible. And this is the rub, the market influences on these decisions.
Don

Thanks 51, My objective when I started this tread was to have a discussion on an existing problem ; many stamps are already deteriorated, some with acidity burn , others with the constant changing of humidity in the gum, create crease on the paper. Other have colour change, some even loose colour. We know about nothing about the effect of de acidification bath on certain ink used on stamps, effect on the gum too. So it's start to be the time some peoples look at the problem, will not be something association like APS should do ?

I have many stamps so burn by acidity you can't touch them, they are brittle like a rose soak in liquid nitrogen. This is a subject I like because before my lab accident I was studying chemistry at university and been an oil and acrylic painter , many years ago I wanted to start a company selling artist oil colors, so I study a lot pigments and things like "Lightfastness" ( this is how pigments resist to light degradation )

I don't think you can paint this picture with 1 broad brush. 99% of Stamps were produced in huge numbers so if you have a bad one, get a better one. For the 1% of stamps similar to the BG Magenta that Don mentioned preservation is the key. If you choose to repair a stamp that you own then that is your prerogative but the problem that does arise on the market is deception and deceit and sellers trying to pass these off as "post office fresh". Few us us are in possession of stamps that are 1 of a kind and honestly I can say that I only have 1 item in my collection that might warrant repair or restoration if it got to that point.

Paper made with wood pulp (common in pre 1930 papers) will often have lower pH due to the acids in the wood pulp. This results in it becoming yellow (toning) and brittle. This can be countered by using a calcium or magnesium bicarbonate bath to raise the pH to neutralize the acids. Many folks do not also understand that you can actually put additional alkaline in reserve, allowing it to leach out over time to continue to hold the pH higher. (I spent endless hours describing this effect to aquarium hobbyists struggling to maintain the proper pH in their fish tanks; water can also hold additional alkaline in reserve .)

Leaving stamps on pulp paper covers or documents without neutralizing them will lessen their life expectancy. Putting a stamp them in an inert mount might help but is no guarantee if they are in an acidic environment. Storing stamps in a wooden boxes like a cigar box will accelerate the acidification process.

But even neutralize paper, or paper that is manufactured acid free, only has a life expectancy of about 500-1000 years. (Excluding extraordinary conservation efforts like removing all O2 from the environment and replacing it with inert gases.) I hate to say it but short of some new technology, paper artifacts simply will not last thousands of years; all of our stamps will eventually crumble to dust.

But I agree that we should do everything we can to preserve our stamps now. Digital technologies will last a lot longer but who wants to collect images? Hopefully some new technology will arise which will allow paper to be kept longer than 1000 years.
Don

Painting was not a good example, but here a good one...Books; how many companies specialize in book restoration ? So you can repair an old book but not a stamp ? come on , who started the idea , stamps sellers for sure. It's like the idea that mint stamps need OG ... gum is an annoyance, make the page more thick , curl or crease the stamps.

Agreed, and agreed.

Don is correct about the important distinction between preservation and restoration.

I am just not so sure why we are so bananas about restoration.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I think this question of restoration is touchy for philatelists because very often in the marketplace stamps that have and restoration work done have been marketed as in condition X without notifying the potential consumer that the item was restored in terms of having paper rips fixed, partial gum loss restored if unused, etc. Perhaps if there was less of this attempt to pass off a restored stamp as is post-restoration without mentitoning such restoration work, the marketplace would be more accepting.

The restoration vs. preservation debate goes on in many other collectable areas including car collecting and antiques. When prices fell on antiques many people began revisiting the idea that they should never refinish grandfather's roll top desk. If the piece is sitting in the living room and had lost value, refinishing it and enjoying it began to look more feasible.

I purchased the car in my avatar from its original owner who had it in dry storage for decades while overseas. Other than a repaint, the car was as original as any you could imagine. When I would open the hood Studebaker people would crowd around taking pictures and notes on how the original cloth wiring was routed, how things like the various fastening hardware were installed. Yet while my car was scoring around 385 their frame off restoration cars were beating it with scores closer to the perfect 400.

Studebaker built hundreds of thousands of these cars, they are not rare. But what is VERY rare is a good condition original car. But as people kept on being 'rewarded' (at shows or in the marketplace) to do restorations the number of original condition cars declined. At some point it becomes critical to maintain the original cars in a state of preservation so they can serve as references. But will people want to invest in, and then continue to invest in preservation, for a car that is not as 'pretty' as a frame off car?

If we continue to reperf natural straight edge stamps at some point the natural straight edge stamp will become rare (they were already less common). But will natural straight edge stamps ever be looked at as 'pretty' as a perf all-around stamp? I still find myself avoiding natural straight edge stamps because I think they don't 'look' as good in my albums.
Don
APS #094826