Is It Ever Acceptable To Destroy Covers?

Good Evening.

I'm a new Great Britain collector, filling in some of the cheap modern stamps, in my childhood collection that stopped around 1980. For the purposes of this question I'm talking stamps post 1970.

I've been noticing on ebay in the UK, that a lot of used stamps are soaked from old first day covers. To me this seems a bit of a shame because I like to see the whole postmarks and the stamps together, however, I don't really have the space to collect first day covers. It does seem, however, that the cheapest way for me to get the missing sets is to buy collections of old covers. The best solution would be then to cut the group of stamps off the cover and mount the group in my album.

I have watched introductions to collecting on Youtube, where the message is it's okay to do whatever you want, there no right and wrong way. Given that people soak stamps off old covers to resell as used, it seems that by destroying covers I might actually be adding, rather than, subtracting value!

I believe mounting parts of covers was fashionable once upon a time; but is it acceptable today?

What do you think?

Dave

Covers take up a lot of space. Those who collect used stamps may not like to use a lot of album space to house a cover when all they want is the stamp. For very common stamps, covers do not add much value. The limited demand may make them difficult to sell.

For classic stamps, covers may add some value.

First day covers, except for the earlier ones, have very little value. The stamps from those covers have recognisable cancellations that will make them worth less than genuine postally used examples. Some stamps from the UK only exist from FDCs. It would make sense to soak them off those covers to add them to a collection.




It is. You decide what you want to collect. No one else does.




Nothing wrong with that for the above reason. Keep in mind most collectors will consider stamps soaked / cut from FDCs spacefillers. But then, it is not their collection.

The appearance of stamps or groups of them cut from covers will make for a less attractive page, but if you're happy with that, that's not a problem. It also means you'll have to make your own pages using blank leaves, rather than the printed pages you can find in the web, but that's fine.

Dauwalders is where I buy my blank leaves. The more you buy, the lower the average cost

https://www.dauwalders.co.uk/album-...s-1718-c.asp

People go through my dollar boxes all the time looking for stamps to soak off. Where do you think all the used stamps come from? Someone had to soak em whether it's you or our ancestors

Thank you so much for the advice. That is very re-assuring.

I know no other collectors in person and the local club closed down a few years back so this forum is a god send to me.

GeoffHa, I make all my pages using pencil and fountain pen and standard A4 high quality ivory paper. I find it very relaxing.

I have actually just soaked the stamps off because the stamps were not stuck on very squarely, and it will make a less bulky page, so I went with that.

Oldboldandbrash, yes, but it somehow feels wrong with a fancy envelope and postmark. And the catalogue value says you are de-valuing it, but I don't really believe that anymore.

Excellent! I see making my pages as being as much part and pleasure of collecting as buying the stamps. Except when I smudge the ink, of course.

I go through dollar boxes looking for things I think are cool. I never soak any of them.