SOAKING AND DRYING STAMPS

On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 11:52:44 GMT, Ryan Davenport
wrote:

I would include older GB lilacs and greens in the list to beware of -
QV period...



Rod wrote:

The novice would have to keep in mind, that apparent
inks of some countries, masquerade as "fugitive ink",
when in fact they are "fugitive gum" and no amount of salt
will inhibit the disappearance of the stamp image.
I speak of the infamous Netherlands Indies, where the paper
is treated with gum arabic prior to printing, and it is that
which disappears and carries the ink with it.

When I was a (much) younger collector, I used to hear about the
dangers of soaking stamps with fugitive inks. After repeatedly reading
such warnings, I had myself convinced that half of my stamps would be
destroyed if I tried to soak them. In reality, it's an uncommon problem
for the "normal" stamps that would be contained in a general
accumulation. Apart from those Netherlands Indies stamps, the stamps
you would be most likely to come across in a "pile of junk" that are in
danger are the Spanish ATM labels and some values of the Polish
definitives with the zodiac caricatures.
Some of the early attempts at self-adhesive stamps are awful to
soak because they won't ever come loose (FRANCE - miserable things) or
because they fall apart (USA 1974 Christmas). And some of the
water-activated gums are bad for not completely dissolving when soaked.
Such stamps will stick together slightly due to the gum residue no
matter how many times you try to soak the things (hello, Austria). Pink
colours are bad for staining if you soak them too long - I'm sure most
people have seen a USA 4c Lincoln definitive that has been soaked too
long and stained through to the back of the stamp. Coloured envelopes
are bad for staining the back of the stamp - get those off the stamp and
out of the soaking tray as soon as they'll come loose. And the green
text on the back of the American commemorative stamps of the mid '70s
will fade the longer those stamps are soaked.
In general, as long as you don't let the stamps soak for hours, 98%
of everything you'll find in a common kiloware accumulation will be OK.
I fill up both sides of the kitchen sink and use one side to loosen
the envelope and the other to rinse off remaining gum (old Dutch stamps
and UK / British Commonwealth stamps often need lots of help with the
fingers to get that goo off). As I take them out of the sink, I put
them on to a small towel to soak up some of the water. Once the towel
is full, I put them in to a stamp drying book to dry off with some
catalogues on top to squeeze them nice and flat. Soak, soak, soak!

Ryan

On Mon, 9 Apr 2007 09:00:37 +0800, "Rod"
wrote:


"Ryan Davenport" wrote in message
news:gI4Sh.44430$6m4.40753@pd7urf1no...

and UK / British Commonwealth stamps often need lots of help with the
fingers to get that goo off).

You really need to try Bob Ingraham's method,
It takes courage, but it really works.
Place the stamp face down on the fatty part of your palm
just below the thumb, in line with your little pinky,
and drag a very sharp knife, trailing the edge, over the gum.
Work in the direction of the perfs.

You only need to disturb the skin of the gum, then
place it back in the water, the gum then disperses quickly
without too much rubbing with the thumb.

It is the only method to remove gum from either
the early Austrian "gold beaters skin" stamps,
or the legendary "Elmers glue" of some Romanian
issues. Goodness knows what that consists of

Needless to say, try it on the low value duplicates first.

Those Austrian issues may never totally come clean. I think they
added the stamp to the gum, instead of vice versa.

"Asia-translation" wrote in message
ups.com...
Then there are the stamps stuck down by the user with non-water-soluable
glue to make sure they stay stuck down. This seems especially common
with
stamps from India, where pilferage is apparently more common than
elsewhere.

Thanks for those Tony,
never seen the result of a glue pot before.

Any idea what the Indians add to their cancel ink,
to give it that familiar "halo" of what looks like oil?

The hyperlinks worked OK for me.

wrote in message
...

Those Austrian issues may never totally come clean. I think they
added the stamp to the gum, instead of vice versa.

:0)

I have had great success with the sharp knife route,
they are legendary "curlers" too, and instead of "teasing"
the back of the stamp with the tweezers, you have to
show 'em who's the boss.
They are very thin, but very tough I find, even the perfins
came out clean and flat as a halibut.

wrote in message
...
On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 11:52:44 GMT, Ryan Davenport
wrote:

I would include older GB lilacs and greens in the list to beware of -
QV period...

I have a list of world fugitive ink stamps on my hard drive,
trouble is, it is in French, and I have no idea from whence it came,
or who sent it to me, and/or who to accredit. So I'll have to leave it
dormant.

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 09:55:51 +0800, "Rod"
wrote:


wrote in message
.. .

Those Austrian issues may never totally come clean. I think they
added the stamp to the gum, instead of vice versa.

:0)

I have had great success with the sharp knife route,
they are legendary "curlers" too, and instead of "teasing"
the back of the stamp with the tweezers, you have to
show 'em who's the boss.
They are very thin, but very tough I find, even the perfins
came out clean and flat as a halibut.

I think this is where "old gluepot" came in handy. Animal based gum,
maybe?

Yes, those Franz Josef "head" issues are a true drag at times. A
mountain of fun trying to perf those suckers and most are not
expensive, but they can curl in places unmentionable in this
newsgroup.

Yeah, even though the paper looks thin, it is usually pretty sturdy.
The same goes for revenue stamps of the 1800's - early 1900's. The
same problems exist.

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 09:59:38 +0800, "Rod"
wrote:


wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 11:52:44 GMT, Ryan Davenport
wrote:

I would include older GB lilacs and greens in the list to beware of -
QV period...

I have a list of world fugitive ink stamps on my hard drive,
trouble is, it is in French, and I have no idea from whence it came,
or who sent it to me, and/or who to accredit. So I'll have to leave it
dormant.

Can you e-mail me the file, please?

On Apr 10, 11:49 am, "Rod" wrote:
"Asia-translation" wrote in message

ups.com...

Then there are the stamps stuck down by the user with non-water-soluable
glue to make sure they stay stuck down. This seems especially common
with
stamps from India, where pilferage is apparently more common than
elsewhere.

Thanks for those Tony,
never seen the result of a glue pot before.

Any idea what the Indians add to their cancel ink,
to give it that familiar "halo" of what looks like oil?

The hyperlinks worked OK for me.

On no evidence whatsoever, I suspect the halo effect results from
watering down oil-based ink. The Jammu and Kashmir cover has a nice
example of it.

The Jammu and Kashmir Post Office was very fond of experimenting. At
one time they were using turmeric in the yellow pigment for printing
the 1/8 anna stamp, SG 138. You woudn't soak these off paper these
days - they're much less common used, and more so on cover - but if
you did, they would produce a lovely bowl full of vivid yellow water.
Here are some unused specimens (they were issued without gum).

http://cjoint.com/?elgabhwa1V

(Also by the bye, my browser doesn't show the underline indicating the
hyperlink in this address. I hope this one works too.)

Tony Mac Gillycuddy

"Asia-translation" wrote in message
ps.com...
|
| http://cjoint.com/?elgabhwa1V
|
| (Also by the bye, my browser doesn't show the underline indicating the
| hyperlink in this address. I hope this one works too.)

The text you send has nothing special. It is the reader which notices (or
not, but Outlook Express does) that a string of chars represents a link and
which then displays it as such and acts on a click.

Putting links alone on one line probably helps. The above worked fine for
me.

tjr

On Apr 12, 12:39 am, Sir F. A. Rien wrote:
On 10 Apr 2007 21:03:46 -0700, "Asia-translation"
found these unused words floating
about:



On Apr 10, 11:49 am, "Rod" wrote:
"Asia-translation" wrote in message

roups.com...

Then there are the stamps stuck down by the user with non-water-soluable
glue to make sure they stay stuck down. This seems especially common
with
stamps from India, where pilferage is apparently more common than
elsewhere.

Thanks for those Tony,
never seen the result of a glue pot before.

Any idea what the Indians add to their cancel ink,
to give it that familiar "halo" of what looks like oil?

The hyperlinks worked OK for me.

On no evidence whatsoever, I suspect the halo effect results from
watering down oil-based ink. The Jammu and Kashmir cover has a nice
example of it.

The Jammu and Kashmir Post Office was very fond of experimenting. At
one time they were using turmeric in the yellow pigment for printing
the 1/8 anna stamp, SG 138. You woudn't soak these off paper these
days - they're much less common used, and more so on cover - but if
you did, they would produce a lovely bowl full of vivid yellow water.
Here are some unused specimens (they were issued without gum).

http://cjoint.com/?elgabhwa1V

(Also by the bye, my browser doesn't show the underline indicating the
hyperlink in this address. I hope this one works too.)

Tony Mac Gillycuddy

Two things, add a space after the link before the carriage return.
(FWIW - as you did here, I always put links on their own line.)
Check out Firefox as a browser.

Actually I'm using Firefox. I was worried that the underline didn't
appear on my screen when I copied the text into my message. I see it
displays perfectly well now that I have received the message back.
Evidently some quirk of the combination of browser and my system...

Tony Mac Gillycuddy