Question About The Back Of Stamps - Is This Austria Sc#194 Overprint Stamp Ruined?

Hi again,

I have been going through old packets of stamps, some of the stamps I encounter are lightly stuck together so I try peeling them apart gently, I do not pull hard - except with this stamp I pulled a little harder than normal I think and I am wondering if it is damaged badly now, here is a picture of front and back:




I am thinking the discoloration on the back is from being stuck? It looks like mold in the picture and also sort of under the loupe, but I don't believe that is what it is.

I am hoping this isn't too bad, I will never try doing that again!

Thank you for any information about the back of the stamp that you can give, and the front too if you would like, I find it all interesting.
Julie

These stamps turn up frequently in old albums, so don't worry! That does look rather like toning or foxing at the edges of the design.

Julie - if you encounter the same problem again - (stamp clinging to each other) then it is safe for 99% of all stamps to simply soak them in water. Wait a short while - and leave for drying (on an appropriate surface like a clean towel or white paper, face down). Another positive effect by this is to get away old debries, hinge remnants and generally the stamps often look a bit fresher after a bath - mot unlike ourselves.

Obviously you do not want to soak mint stamps. There are also some very few stamps printed on chalky paper or with poor ink, and such stamps should preferably not be soaked. No need to worry too much about this tough, in general this applies for very few mostly older stamps. Scott mentions the running ink issue for some stamps, as well as if printed on chalky paper. If in doubt - ask!

http://stampsmarter.com/learning/Ho...kStamps.html

One of many 'How To' articles in the online Stamp Smarter Library
Don

May I suggest, if they are gummed and lightly stuck together, sometimes putting them in the freezer will help one separate the stamps with no additional damage. That being said, the excellent Stamp Smarter resource above is a good go-to guide.

Thank you all for your help - I now know what "toning and foxing" is!

I am looking into these packets of stamps and they have been badly stored for a lot of years, I had a packet that was giving me trouble as the stamps were stuck to a gummed sheet, so I wanted to soak the stamps off, but my nephew insisted on trying to freeze them first - this worked well for most stamps on the sheet, but had 2 pieces of stuck stamps afterward still so did try soaking using the information that Don pointed me to (many thanks). The stamps are drying now and I will see how I did tomorrow I guess when they dry. Wow, it was super easy to soak the stamps, I like that method best so far. I do understand that one would not soak an unused stamp - one with original gum.

On another topic but in keeping with the topic of this thread, I came across a stamp today that I have a couple of questions about, here it is:



I noticed when looking at this stamp that the card stock that the stamp is printed on is thicker than normal and seems to be made up of at least 2 sheets pressed together, the sheets seem to have shifted slightly and one sheet is hanging into the perf area from underneath. I don't know if you can see this from the picture or not. Is this considered to be an oddity or an imperfection, or something else?

The other question about this stamp is that I couldn't help but notice that an imperf horizontal pair with a gutter between the design is worth 15 thousand dollars - that caught my eye and I had to find out what a gutter was. Now I am wondering if I am understanding correctly, do they mean the stamp split into 2 pieces (or 2 stamps)? That seems kind of weird to me, what was each side worth in postage? I find this to be a bit confusing, if someone could explain to me I would be very appreciative.

Thanks so much everyone for everything you have done to help me so far!

Julie

No - it's two stamps. The gutter is a section of paper between two perforated stamps, usually at the cente of a sheet of stamps. In this case, the edges of the stamps meeting the gutter had not been perforated, creating the rarity. Because of scope for trimming the edge of a stamp, such issues need to be in pairs that are imperforated between to show that they're genuine errors.

Thanks Geoff for straightening me out about the gutter, I appreciate it. I am still wondering about the bottom edge of the stamp and the way the back "sheet" of paper is slipping from the back of the stamp into the perf's and blocking them, thus in the picture it looks like there are barely any perf's but under magnification one can see that the perf's are there but are being blocked.
Thanks for your help, Julie

Now I am totally bummed, I soaked a large clump of mnh stamps that were all stuck together. I made a HUGE mistake and put them to dry on a flat surface, they stuck to the surfaces that I dried them on, a pyrex glass dish and a metal pan. I live pretty far from town and have not gone in yet to replenish a supply of paper towels so I deviated from the drying instructions with disastrous results. Live and learn...

Soak them off of the dish and pan now

Thank you Specialized1, they are soaking right now. I was at a loss as to what to do, you really helped, thanks, Julie

You can use towels. Just make sure to put them face down. I use a dfying book but whsn I run out of space paped towels come second. When I'm low on them them I use bath towels.

Thnk you mkfarm, the stamps are drying off on a bath towel right now, again, I wasn't sure what I was going to dry them on, thank you so much! Julie