Stamp Removal For 21st Century US Stamps

What's your best way of removing 21st century cancelled U.S. stamps? I still soak mine, but sometimes the paper doesn't come off. If I can't remove the paper, I cut around the stamp and hinge it in my album.

soccerfan, there are several threads on this forum addressing your problem. If you go to the search function on this page and enter: 'soaking adhesive stamps' you get all sorts of replies. My favorite way is to leave the stamp on paper and trim it as close as possible!

Peter

Quote: "What's your best way of removing 21st century cancelled U.S. stamps?"//sarcasm on//


Answer: "Burn them".
The USPS has tried for decades to deter the hobby of collecting of United States postage stamps. Too many issues in a year like - 2010 - 65 issues, didn't work; too many souvenir sheets like Authors or Opera - didn't work; too many varieties of same or similar stamps like Chinese New Years - didn't work; special secret issues like $2 Jenny; too many confusing, never ending definitives like Transportation or Great American series; and currently self adhesive stamps impossible to remove from backing.... and yet you persist! //sarcasm off//

Oh well. Nothing really works. Soaking doesn't; soaping doesn't; lighter fluid doesn't; Pure Citrus doesn't; Goo Gone doesn't. USPS may have finally won ... if you find the "better mouse trap" to remove self adhesive stamps you will be a zillionaire.... also seeking the new "perfect" hinge replacement for Dennison ... either one will make you rich and famous.

Hahahhaa! oldguy has the answer!

A better search term for removing PSA (Pressure Sensitive Adhesive) stamps from covers is "pure citrus", as a thread rarely goes by without it.

I've been using low-odor paint thinner for six years now, and have not
had any problems. The stamps show no damage whatsoever, and as long
as I keep the room well ventilated, it works fine.

I don't think oldguy has it at all. The USPS has no reason to care whether stamps are collected after they are used. And they certainly benefit when the are collected in mint condition and not used. But "cost savings" are more important to them than the needs of collectors, and if the two conflict, collectors get short shrift. Presumably the technology of self-adhesive stamps saves $$$ compared to applying gum adhesives.

I think you're a little hard on the USPS. There're chronically short of money. They have to make cuts, and that's tough on everyone, not just collectors. Our mail has for decades not been sorted locally. It is sent 75 miles away, so there is no same day delivery. Now they want to close that sorting facility and ship the mail down to Wisconsin to be sorted, so there will be no next day delivery.

I think they make self stick stamps because the public likes them. As a collector, of course, I hate them, but as a mailer I quite like them. As for the number of stamps they issue in a year, I don't know. There must be a cost, fairly high, to issuing a stamp. Do they sell enough to make a profit?

They must be bright enough to value collectors. Who else pays a fee for a service (mail delivery), and then never asks for the service to be performed? You or I might buy one or two stamps for the collection, but think of the Syracuse post office when Mystic comes calling.

Don

Even in the old days, way before The War on Terror, ordinary people did not care for licking stamps.

People ('secretaries') who would affix stamps, one-by-one, during the day, kept a device on their desk for this purpose.

I am certain that every post office thinks that its customers prefer PSA stamps, and that they are right.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...s82h_g229_i5 ... contemporary stamp sponge, for sale today ... what for?

https://www.etsy.com/search?q=porce...%20moistener ... the venerable porcelain stamp moistener ... got one?

Yes, I remember going to the local Post Office in the mid-1990s and the Post Master had a small round container with a ball in the center that rolled.

I'd roll the ball while waiting for her to hand me the mail or while she was busy counting stamps or change. My attention span was short back then.

-MV

oldguy is on right on target. Except for the Pure Citrus. Pure Citrus works.

Jack Kelley

I get most off with Ronsonol. I put them in the watermark tray and cover with fluid then I have a sharp knife I slide between the stamp and paper to get it off. The I put it in baby powder then use the knife to scrape off left over gum. Works well except for the real thin ones like the machines print.

Mineral spirits work well, then dry and dust in baby powered. I've been doing it for several years now.

I tried a chemical spray called ProClean once and it worked. It's probably expensive and dangerous.

research: https://www.youtube.com/results?sea...esive+stamps

There's a wealth of YouTube videos to choose from proposing the use of WD-40 to different fuels (really!) and so forth. Personally the self-adhesives are about where I stop collecting for my US.

On another comment about the USPS not wanting us to collect? Wow. I've been collecting for many many decades too and often wondered about the opposite when dozens of new issues are made every year, and the panels and the s.s. and the collection of state stamps etc etc etc. Imagine if all those 3, 4, 5 and 6 cent mint stamps that still float around in bulk were ever turned in for postal service - as in delivering mail. The USPS would go broke!

Edit Add: just visited the store.usps.com site and found the new stamps coming out - one with the following description:

Classics Forever
Forever 47¢ | Sheet of 6

The U.S. Postal Service® issues this Classics Forever souvenir sheet in celebration of the long history of U.S. postage stamps—and in appreciation of stamp collectors and philatelists everywhere