Move Or Leave Stamps From Old Books?

I have two stamp books that my grandfather gave me when I was going through my stamp-collecting phase as a kid. They're not in the best shape and both are rather sparsely populated, although there are a few pages that have a larger number of stamps on them. Now that I have rescued them from my parent's house and have them in my physical possession again, I was wondering: Is it better to leave the stamps where they are, or move them to a new home where they will have more companions?

Given that I am a beginner stamp collector (although I did get really good at soaking stamps ), are there any pros, cons, dangers, etc. I should be aware of?

Thanks!

Most people like to build their own collections and only use any old albums as sources for material they need. If you do remove the stamps, do it carefully. If any are stuck down, don't try to pry them loose but soak them or use Stamp Lift fluid or a Stamp Lift box, all of which will ruin the pages, anyway. Depending on the hinges used, they might be easily peeled away from the stamps, otherwise soaked off. Some collectors just clip away the part not attached to the hinge and place a new hinge over that portion of the old one, but soaking is neater and will wash away any glue or dirt that can sometimes be seen on the surface of stamps from old collections, depending on how they were assembled and kept.

Cool, thanks for the tips.

My inclination is to move the stamps to a consolidated album, which is why I asked (trying to avoid as many beginner mistakes as possible). I'm toying with the idea of making my own book and pages, but I realize that's a lot of work.

The albums themselves are pretty neat books, so I would hate to damage them any further. But they are certainly unsuited for a modern collection.

And stamphop if the stamps have brown spots on them don't put them in the same album

It's like a cancer and will spread to your other stamps

Jason BD

Eww. Some sort of mold?

It looks like most of the stamps in the books are in pretty good shape (thankfully, the books are just well-worn, not mistreated), but I'll keep an eye out for that.

Great questions and replies for me to learn from! Stamphop, did you have to pay ransome to free those stamps? I had to sneak some of mine away!

Thanks, guys!
Gussyboy1

Just now saw your note, gussyboy1.

I am really lucky my grandfather was quite a generous person, so I had no need to be sneaky (at least with the stamps anyway...) When my brother started getting into photography (which amazingly has actually turned into a profession for him), my grandfather gave him all his old photo development equipment and several really neat old cameras. I don't know much about cameras, but I remember that one of them had two lenses and another was a small box-type camera.

Stamphop, if do make your own pages, be sure to use archival paper. Since I have transferred from album to album several times, it is good time to consider whether to use hinges or plastic mounts depending on whether they are already hinged or MNH. Check the back carefully for any penciled marks or numbers, as they may be important for identification of similar issues. Many collectors, especially then used pencils to mark stamps or even authenicating them. As long as you have the stamp in tong, check the perfs and watermark if it is an important factor. Easier to do all at once and write it on the album page.

Jim

Thanks for the tips, desertgem. For the DIY album, my thought was to use scrapbooking albums that are listed as "archival" quality. The catch is that I would really like to run the pages through my printer and most scrapbook albums have pages are too big.

For the DIY album, I'm leaning towards transferring everything into plastic mounts regardless, just because I think it will make for a better presentation. I should note that given how time-consuming I know this is going to be, I really plan on maintaining the bulk of my collection in regular commercial albums (although I still haven't decided which way I want to go there either). The DIY albums will be for particular themes or topics I find interesting.

I'll keep an eye out for pencil notations. Thanks for letting me know to look out for them.

Since you are familiar with computer stuff, if you print your own, check the ink as the "water based" black ink and colors can run if they get any little drop of water on them ( experience!). I have used a toner based laser printer and a wax based Xerox laser with excellent results. I do know that some of the printers use a graphite based liquid black ink, like some of the newer canon printer, but I have never used one. Use the heaviest archival paper your printer can run, my older canon can do 80#, but the older hp laser can do 100# straight path.

Jim

Stamphop. Here is another useful tip, [ well at least for me its useful ] once you remove the stamps from the older albums, save them, they make great stock books to house your duplicate stamps.