Advice On US Cover Please

OK… I'm new to this site, and I'm glad to be able to seek expert advice …

I'm thinking of breaking a golden rule but perhaps for good reason. I have an old album with covers mounted, but the collector cut the bottom half of the covers off. This particular cover I believe is some kind of soldiers mail from World War I. I have not yet identified which Washington/Franklin this is , but I believe the left stamp is a "jumbo"...... should I soak it? Isn't the cover pretty much worthless because the bottom half is removed ?

Fredc, why destroy the cover? The stamps look like booklet stamps - worth next to nothing if that is important to you. But the cover has something to tell, even is it not complete any longer.

Peter

Keep the cover

No good reason to destroy the cover.

The cover has censor marking and signature, and it also has a complete military cancellation. If you soak the stamps off, what have you got?

Answer: Two practically valueless stamps that tell you nothing.

Understood. Cover stays. Thanks- I appreciate the feedback

By cutting off the 'bottom half' of the cover do you mean that they are what are called 'fronts' in philatelic parlance?

As far as I know, a front is the entire front half of the cover, the upper half would be two stamps on piece.

This appears to be what is called a "front". You should leave it as it is, though its commercial value is greatly reduced from an "entire" which for this example would be fairly minimal, at least it would be slightly more than just the stamps soaked off.