Tape Mounts, How To Remove

I purchased an album without realizing that many of the stamps are taped to the album pages.
The tape is only on the backside of the stamp. What is the best way to remove the tape? I am trying to soak one stamp in water as a test, but the tape remains.
Thanks!

The tape will leave a stain even when removed. Can you return the album?

q-tip, acetone, water w/baking soda bath???

There nothing that can really be done easily, if at all. Such effort would only be worth the time and expense on high catalog (over $100 or so) single stamps. Return the item for refund, if you can, if you paid money for it. Otherwise take it as a learning expecience, strip out any non-taped stamp and yes, through the remaining stamps and album into paper recycling and garbage.

you can't even recycle this abomination

Unfortunately, I cannot return the album.

Its actually much worse than I thought. Probably 95% of the stamps are like this, from an album with at least 1000 stamps. Many of the stamps go back to the 1860s (and maybe 1850s) from multiple countries, which is exactly what I wanted. I don't think anything is worth more than a couple bucks (if in perfect condition), but I still wanted the stamps. Yes, I am going to take it as a learning experience, but it certainly sucks because I rarely can afford to treat myself to something like this and I was really looking forward to organizing the album with my current stamps. The guy probably spent more on scotch tape (in the 80s) than he would have with stamp mounts.

Here are some pages of the album. There are many more like this. All the stamps you see that are not in mounts are taped to the album.

PHILATELES ---- Don't feel bad ,we all made the same type of screw up , and some like me made that mistake more than once .

My advice start looking for something good to buy and it will make a painful purchase fade away quicker .

Now you are in an excellent position of testing the various methods peple try (usually in vain)
People have attempted the following methods:

1. Hairdryer
2. Moderatly hot iron
3. Lighter fluid.or better wound spirit
4. Citric acid
5. 1-1-1 trichloroethane (for those with a secret death wish)
6. Eucalyptus oil
7. Paint thinner
8. Acetone (only back of stamps)
9. Other ugly organic solvents you may find
10. Other odd things I read once, like window cleaner

Applying heat works (mostly), with not too old tape kinds but does not remove residues.

So far I've tried water (including heating up the stamp in water in the microwave until it boils), heat gun, and 70% isopropyl alcohol (soaking the whole stamp). Still no easy solution. The isopropyl alcohol seemed to do best, but still was not perfect. I might buy some higher strength and try it.
Luckily there were a few pages of loose leaf with 20 of the same stamp taped to them so I have test subjects.

You can also use these stamps as some test subjects for practicing the identification of stamps when using a catalog. You may discover that while there are multiple stamps that are face identical, they represent different varieties, perforation or other types, and use them as a learning experience.

Philatele

Don't feel bad we this happens to best of us.

When you get your 50 posts in send me an email. I will gladly send you some of my spares :)

This use of tape seems to have been a common technique, I've been hit with similar issues on some of my auction buys, but not to the extent your scans show. I've been lucky in that only a few stamps in each album have used tape. My guess is that this happens with 'schoolboy' collections when they run out of hinges but want to keep mounting.

The other big issue I come across is mint stamps being 'stuck' into albums, using the available gum. Grrr.

I still recall my first stamp album ... a Christmas gift from my parents many years ago. I also recall how my mother taught me to use scotch tape to place stamps in my album. Neither of us had a clue as to the correct process. We didn't ruin all that many stamps, most of which were quite common foreign stamps of the era, though a few of the album pages suffered significant long term damage. Fortunately, my mother's uncle was a U.S. precancel collector ... he quickly clued us in to the proper tools that were needed.

This was not a young kid. This was a recently retired from the military adult. I know when he built this album. (It was written in the book.) I am just assuming that he must have had an experience where regular hinges weren't holding his stamps in place and he got tired of it.

Thanks for your support everyone and advice. I'm going to keep trying a few more options, then decide whether or not it's worth removing the stamps at all. Right now, I'm pulling the ones out of the homemade clear stamp mounts, but there are only 2-5 per full page of stamps. Fortunately, I did not buy this for any high value stamps.