Best Way To Seperate Stampo From Letter ?

Hi all
sorry for so many post on this forum

I wanted to ask - Is it better to use a water heater and let the heat tear apart the stamp or put the paper around the stamp in water?
is there another way?

I think the heaating makes the stamp more soft and the paper in water makes the cancelation get 'not sharp'

How do you do this?

If you mean how to soak stamps, I am sure there are threads on that. I use tepid or cool water, let soak for 20 minutes or so, and dry on paper towel or similar drying material.

On older stamps, the ones that you have to lick to put on a letter you can use cold water. They do not have to stay in there for a long time - a few minutes can be enough. For self stick stamps the story is completely different. There are all sorts of things we use here in the States that are not available in Holland. The best thing with these is to wait until someone from the Netherlands rings in and ask him or her what they use.

Peter

Okay thanks guys
problem was on my end - I used warm water.

Hi, I'm Vince and new to this forum. Just wanted to say, a lot of the self adhesive stamps have 2 layers of adhesive. I've had luck soaking in Luke warm water overnight. If they still don't come off easy I let them dry, then spray the paper side with pure orange (any citrus oil) After about 20 minutes the stamp should slide right off. If gum side is still sticky put in talcom powder. Wait a minute and shake it off. This is what I do, good luck!

Hi,

cold water is fine for most stamps with gum (the ones to be licked). With self-adhesives it depends of the country of origin: Netherlands and Germany come off in cold water, UK, USA, France and others are somewhere between more difficult and impossible. For these I try boiling water, for some that works, if not I cut off the paper as close to the stamp as possible. The ink used for cancellation does (generally) not dissolve in water, so leaving the stamps for quite some time is not a problem.

Then there is paper and paper: some coloured enveloppe paper (typically used for Christmas greetings) will release the dye and the stamp becomes coloured. The stamp has to be in water as short as possible, so I use boiling water with a bit of kitchen salt, grab the stamp-on-paper with a tweezer, one at a time, completely immerge it in the water and move it until the stamp comes off, then rinse with clean water.

Drying and pressing: there are drying books like the one from Lindner or Kobra with blotting paper (vloeipapier) and interleaves of transparent foil:




These you should get from your local stamp dealer.

Take the stamp out of the water, put it between two sheets of paper towel to remove most of the water and leave it a few minutes, put it in the drying book with the gum side against the transparent foil, close the book and put a weight in order to press (5-7 kg of books or similar), leave the whole over night. Should against all odds the stamp still adhere to the foil, wait until it's completely dry and carefully peel it off.


Klaus