My Battle Strategy For Removing Mildew Smell

Sometimes I get kiloware that has been sealed for many years and it get a lack of oxygen smell.

There is some great info here from other posters.

Have tackled it a bit differently.

1st I give them a couple of days in well ventilated spot with a bit of direct sunlight, Then used vanilla esscent in a bowl on top of the stamps and seal them up again for a day or so.

And then repeat until they do not smell.

The other is to soak them if they have ink that allows this to happen and your not dealing with a million stamps.

Update! After about three and a half weeks, I can proudly announce that the odors are gone. I highly recommend this method for anyone that has undesirable odors coming from their stamps. Baking soda works wonders. My advice is to forget about them while they are "baking", it makes the time go by much faster.

Thanks again to everyone for their input.

That's great news wheatcent!

Just for clarification, baking soda in Australia is known is bicarbonate of soda, or simply bicarb soda.

I used it to get the musty smell out of an old book. Worked wonders

My topic these days... I am an advanced amateur, so to speak. But have never found a solution for mildew. :-(

It seems there is no way to fix the mildew in the album pages per se? My Mystic albums are a bit smelly and yellowish. Applying some chlorine with a swab will help with some yellow corners or sides but my guess is they should be replaced.

I also bought some nice White Ace album pages from ebay but they are less than white. All the pages have rust spots and smell.

I'd steer well away from wiping bleach on album pages, if that's what you're referring to. It will degrade the paper, for one thing, and it will damage any stamp it comes into contact with. Album pages with stains, yellowing, or "foxing" (your rust spots, I imagine) might just as well be thrown away. I wouldn't put any of my stamps on pages like that or I'd be asking for trouble. Maybe return your White Ace pages to the seller? I would.

Also, there are ways to "fix the mildew in the album pages" and those ways are what we've been discussing. The same methods which improve stamps will help improve the smell of mildewed album pages. Well, you hope so, anyway. I've had some luck with this on album pages. My "nuclear" method is to put any mildewed pages in the sun for an hour or more. UV rays seem to help. Of course if you have stamp on those pages, you'll need to be very careful indeed. My normal method is the baking soda in a box method I've described. Or use the fan with carbon method which is a bit more technological. Still, if I bought pages which were mildewed, I'd send them right back to the seller.

Thanks for the reply, Drew.

I tried some bleach on extra Mystic pages and they were whitened. I tried exposing it to direct sunlight for close to 3 hours and there was no noticeable change in color. Then... I ordered new pages from Mystic and they turned out to be the same light yellowish tone as my old pages, but, of course, no mildew odor. So, I guess I can deduce that my mildew problem is minor and can try your "nuclear" method for the odor, sans the stamps, of course. I feel like some witch doctor in medieval times. :-)

The White Ace album pages I bought many years ago from ebay for the stamps. I found them very beautiful but the mildew now is serious. The stamps have not suffered and I will remove them shortly into new pages. I am under the impression that the Scott album pages are the best in terms of mildew resistance, would you concur? Which album pages you use or would recommend?

Again, your reply is much appreciated.

Lighthouse are probably the highest quality pages for a wide range of countries, but most pages will succumb to bad storage over time.

Found this and I wonder how to read the results.

https://www.collectorsclubchicago.o...tamp-albums/