How Do You Split Stamps Into Singles?

Years ago it was mostly easy to split stamps into singles if I had a sheet and wanted one for my stamp book, I could just fold along the perfs and carefully split the stamps apart.

Many of the modern stamps with backing I can fold along the perforations and use a knife placed into the fold and do a reasonable job of cutting the stamps apart. I have found that an insanely sharp knife is not the best for this application; most of my knives are crazy sharp.

Some of the modern stamps with backing you cannot do this in any way. This is also true of most booklet stamps. How do you deal with these? My Father used to just use all the stamps around a stamp for postage and then use scissors.

fold, crease, sharp pen knife at crease, quick cut up center. take care to center perfs when creasing. If done correctly, leading edge of perf will lift from backing & only backing is cut (minute adhesive at perf edge exposed)

I need to figure out how to quote messages I'm replying to....

Thanks for the response.

That sounds perfect for the majority of the stamps.

Do you find that this works for stamps that are not perforated at all on the back? I know that most are, but some of these sheets do not seem to fold that easily.

@Elegies - this is what I also do when I can't just use all the stamps around the target. However, the approach results in perf ends without backing paper.

yes it does but very very small I immediately put in mounts & do not have issue with adhesive sticking to mount backing. a little talc helps as well. sometimes I will use a single design as postage & leave just the one on the backing paper trimmed close to perfs, careful not to trim perf.

I am sorting my father's stamps and I've started to get into stamps that have the backings and some of the stamps. I see he didn't separate very well. Trying to decide if I'm going to try to clean it up or it's just going to become postage.

Have not considered to talc.

Hi Andy, If you clicked Reply to Topic, it's the next to last icon on the Format line above, the page with red arrow.
Copy text you want to quote, and carefully click to the right of the flashing cursor, and paste.

Interesting, so I only see the "Quote" icon if I go to the "full" mode to reply. So if I want to include a quote I should copy the content and then I can manually quote the individual parts.

I expected that I could go to a specific post and then do a reply to a post directly.

Thanks for the pointer....




At least on my computer it does show the text.... so it is easy to copy and paste it into the response.

When I am dealing with modern self adhesive stamps, I use the stamps around them and then save the one, or four, or whatever I am keeping, and trim the used backing paper close, but not too close. For the U.S. "booklet" stamps that have stamps on both sides. I will use all the stamps on one of the sides, then use some of the stamps on the remaining side, keeping what is left. I find it almost pointless to keep a complete booklet when you can only see stamps on one side.

The consensus on stamps with no easy ability to "bend" them at the perforations:




I was really hoping for a "miracle" method since I need to use many stamps to get just a few.




@eligies Can you do this when the backing is not modified from the USPS? Also, some very nice tips.

IMHO, the problem with U.S. stamps, and probably the same in many countries, is that you can't buy them in small numbers at the post office. Unless you are willing to buy the whole booklet or mini-sheet, it could be really cumbersome to collect singles. I suppose there are those who might sell singles, but how carefully will they have been separated out? It's quite an effort to do so and not sure anyone would be willing to spend the time just to make a nickel. I stopped purposeful buying of U.S. from the post office at the end of 2023. I had been keeping the whole mini-sheet and the whole booklet up to that point. Now, we get a book of stamps and I use the method I mentioned to save a single and/or block. The rest are used on mail. Yes, we still send out mail and Christmas cards. I almost prefer to save stamps from items we get in the mail. I cut out the corner of the envelope if the stamp is in good shape, trim fairly close, and mount it just like it came to me. I'm so not interested in keeping the full cover unless it's a high value stamp.

That is so true. it is why I was buying year books and sets because some of the stamps I could buy split out.... And then I noticed that one of the sets contained damaged stamps, which means that it really accomplished nothing.

https://goscf.com/t/89834

A local dealer, who I have not spoken to since covid, offered to sell full sets that he splits out. I need to check on him to see how he is doing. Some of the difficult to split sets I just drop in an entire sheet.

Some of the Federal duck stamps they are only selling by the sheet now. I really don't wan't to buy a $500 sheet just to get a stamp for me and my daughter. When I have to buy four, I just suck it up and buy the four, but a block of 20? No!

I can't imagine doing this to valuable stamps, nor can I imagine caring how a non-valuable stamp was torn apart. So if I want to tear 2 staps apart, if they are cheap enough to do it, I just tear them apart like I would do before mailing a letter.

The primary stamps of interest from my perspective, our adhesive back, which means you don't generally just kind of tear them apart, but instead you just peel them off if you're going to use them for postage.

I noticed that my father was obviously just tearing them by hand if he didn't use stamps from around the one of interest and then cut it out. And doing this a lot of times I'm seeing extra backing. That's kind of frayed. In general, when I see that I just set it aside to use for postage

And some stamps there's no easy way to separate them because they don't have any kind of perforation lines on the back. I have managed to fold some of those and still use a knife to cut between the pervs, but man I am not good at that. If the backing is perfect enough that you can easily bend it, I can usually do a pretty good job night of cutting out stamps. It's not perfect but it's pretty good.

The duck stamps that are $25 a piece. I have no idea how those are packaged since I've never bought a $500 sheet of them.