Help With 1970-S US Stamps With No Gum

https://www.csmonitor.com/1988/0607/apost.html

Could these have been laundered? I learned an inexpensive lesson and am never going to purchase mint no gum stamps again because of the unknown factors. I am not going to use these and will most likely shred them.

Wow, a 31 year old newspaper article.

From the looks of the surfaces of those 13c stamps, IMO it is very unlikely that they have been chemically cleaned.

This is an interesting thread to me because I am cleaning up my much neglected All American album which I haven't looked at much in the last 30 years. Several of my stamp holders on my unused stamps had come loose as have many of the hinges on my used stamps. All the material was put in the album between 1968 and 1976. After taking the unused stamps out of their old holders I have noticed many of the 60s and 70s stamps lack glue. For the life of me I cannot figure this out as they would have all been purchased new, since the only stamps I bought from the local stamp and coin store were older issues from the 40s and 50s.

Usmedalman, it could very easily be that the stamps which appear not to have gum are gummed with modern PVA gum which is dull (invisible) and makes the stamp look ungummed.

bookbnbrbob, thanks for the tip. I will check that out.

I appreciate all your responses to this thread I started a few months ago. Is there a definitive way to tell if stamps that are advertised as "no gum" have been chemically laundered or not? I wonder what happened criminally to those who used stamps purchased from the person in the article below?

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/ne...ted-17151894

I still see sold listings for unused stamps with no gum advertised on ebay. I guess people inherently believe what has been stated by many on here, that such listings are for unused stamps that have been stored in a humid climate and got stuck and were soaked and dried to unstick them.

Here is another up close picture of the energy stamp and the back. Is the vertical black line a cancellation mark?

Buy yourself a glue stick and start using them for postage.

The faint black lines show up on many of the issues of the late 1970's and are a side effect of the printing process. Other colors sometimes leave lines and smears as well. The ungummed postage is perfectly valid for postage and easily used with a glue stick. Many dealers and collectors use up ungummed postage as an inexpensive mailing option, just a little inconvenient.

I have a few pounds of stamps that have come to me that also have no gum on great many of them. I would think there is still a market for them without gum and I understand that many of them will only be worth using for arts & crafts. I'm hoping though there are a few better stamps that hold a higher value. I'm basically a newbie and I have started my journey of discovery with regard to stamp collecting. I would choose stamps as something to concern myself with in my retirement. Hopefully it is worth it as it will certainly take some time to educate oneself with regard to stamp collecting. I became a member because I'm grateful to have learned there is a community of people who might help me answer difficult questions when they arise.

OP's stamps, probably, were unused and lost their gum.

When you write about "pounds of stamps ... that also have no gum on great many of them," it sounds like you have used stamps that have not been cancelled. You may find a rare error among them, but the odds are not great. Otherwise, it is unlikely any market for them will yield a few cents for dozens of them. Enjoying them may be the most rewarding strategy.

With the coming of data matrix technology, uncancelled stamps may become 'normal' used stamps. I would be surprised if that would make the earlier ones that were missed by the cancelling device popular. But you never know.

Where collectors hate smudgy cancels, they also do dislike 'no cancels' and pen cancels.