Scott 68 With A Repair?

After a bit of practice you will be able to use it any time you need to.

A few things...

1. It's Sinclair.

2. Just my opinion... I doubt there are any perfs added. You could soak it again and see if the perfs at upper left (looking at the back) have been added.

3. "It's your call, and your stamp". While the owner of a stamp is legally free do as they choose with their stamps, there is an ethical obligation to preserve stamps as close to their original state as possible for future owners. Ownership is only temporary! For the pedants... of course reasonable exceptions do exist and, no, I am not going to list them.

4. "One "last ditch effort" that Sinclare2010 doesn't like me recommending is to use an advanced technique called the "Graphite test"". It isn't an advanced technique and most of the time is nothing more than a shortcut, the easy way out, instead of developing and using less invasive techniques that actually do require skill. I will repeat for the benefit of those that can be reached. The graphite test works because there is some texture to the paper created by the grill. This texture, that must exist for the graphite test to work, allows the collector, or expert, to avail themselves of other truly advanced techniques. I know that I rub people the wrong way but that is just the way it is.

Today in the mail was a 12 item lot of miscellaneous 1850's and 60's stamps, of which two were grilled. The grills, an E and an F, were strong and any idiot should have been able to identify them. They were both given the "advanced" treatment of graphite anyway. I would like to see the recommendation to use graphite stricken from the Stampsmarter section on grills. It could be replaced with a recommendation to use oblique lighting which doesn't even get a mention!

Winston,
If you would like to write something up (and/or provide a few images) I would be pleased to add it as the primary method to use for identifying grills on Stamp Smarter.

I concur that our hobby is FULL of opinions and advice which require a ton of qualifiers to be considered archivally safe. Time and time again we see folks who recommend using things like 'acid free paper', modern hinges, split back mounts, sheet protectors, modern adhesives. All of these things are highly dependent upon the proper use and can easily damage stamps if used incorrectly.

We also see many posts which tell people to 'leave that stamp on the cover' or 'leave stamp on that cover fragment' but very little input on how leaving a stamp on paper increases the chances it will become damaged by acidification.

So it is not just people slathering gobs of graphite all over the back of a stamp; our hobby needs much more information and articles on the proper conservation of paper.
Don

51studebaker... Additional good advice. Collectors should refrain storing old/used envelopes etc in same area as Mint philatelic items....which should be stored distant from Shower/toilet/laundry/kitchen rooms producing steam/water vapor, especially in tropical climates.

"Blue Silica Gell Crystals"....ideal for 'strong box' moisture control.... originally used on breather intakes of huge industrial transformers & changed monthly as crystals turn pink. Gentle pie/oven warmer baking (30mins) returns crystals to dark blue as absorbed moisture evaporates...half a cup does a safe.

Sinclare2010, Understood on the reference to you, and I'll stick to Sinclare2010 going forward. Didn't mean to offend.
I don't use Stampsmarter (sorry Don) for much, and didn't know there was a mention of the graphite test there. I agree that oblique lighting certainly does enable ID of 95% of faint grills.
I think the difficulty in that though is, a "write-up" isn't good enough to actually teach the method. (It's like trying to teach someone by just writing a paragraph on ID'ing ribbed paper. Until I saw HOW the lighting had to work for that, I had read lots of things about it and couldn't ID them. Once I was showed the technique, then I could do it). The same holds true for this lighting and magnification method. Maybe a short video that demonstrates the technique would be more useful.
I wonder how much of this is the result of a persistent mindset within the philatelic community to "hoard knowledge". Moreso than pretty much any other "industry", save for maybe pharmaceutical.
I've worked out a method that allows clear photographing of ribbed papers. While this is a little off topic, it's similar in difficult IDing, I'm attaching the image below which compares a ribbed 162 with a typical 157.



I can't "write" how to do this, I can only show how it works.
But happy to put together a video on how this can be accomplished. It works for grills as well.

I believe Sinclair was saying that the spelling "Sinclare" (see quote) is incorrect.

Oh, how weird. Must be my dyslexia. Completely missed that.

One of the things that makes an expert is not the ability to gather information, most of us have that, but to have the innate ability to both do something with it and question the soundness of his/her own ideas, methods, and conclusions every step of the way.

If we are fortunate, we have a large group of very knowledgeable people that we can both question and observe over a long period of time.