Strange Occurrence With A Stamp Question. Did USPS Or Forgers Ever Experiment With Water Based Ink.

Hope I have the correct forum.

I had a stamp from a kilo ware lot that has me puzzled. I always sort stamps and catalog them prior to soaking them off the paper. After soaking these stamps they ended up with nothing but a partial postmark but I know there was print on them but I soak in larger quantities so I have no idea what it was before the soak. It is perf 11. Stamp size is 23 X 27.5. The postmark is aurora, Illinois. I soak in cold well water only (no chlorine). No soap or chemicals of any kind. None of the other stamps in this soak were affected. The only thing close I can find searching that fit these parameters are the botanical art issues. Also found no reference anywhere about water soluble ink with usps. Can anyone shed some light on how this could happen??

It appears you have a strip of corner selvage which was still attached to the stamps when on cover and cancelled. For this selvage there was no printing and other than for the cancellation, there remains no printing. No, no magic ink involved.

Edited for "corner."

I agree. Check the rest of the stamps that you soaked for the top half of that Aurora cancellation and you should find the matching stamp that was stuck on top of this selvedge.

All I can say is I have already saw the stamp & categaloged everything before I soak. Thanks for the reply.

Can somebody tell me why I'm not getting notifications that a reply has been made to my posts? I assume touching topic subscriptions is supposed to start that. I can't seem to find my info to check that my address is correct.

Then it MUST be disappearing ink!

Rofl. I do get a lot of strange stuff in kilo ware. Most I can figure out. Unfortunately in today's market it's mostly trash. Thanks again.

SCF uses disappearing electrons as well as white text on a white background.

Now if you believe that, do not click on the "Tools" button in the row of buttons at the top of the page. Then do not click on the "manage subscriptions" title to see if and what you have subscribed to and be given a choice to unsubscribe. There is also a mange your profile title to click as well as a manage profile button in the subscriptions page. Lastly if you can't do it, send a message to a moderator using the 'send note to staff button in the lower right of a posted post.

Edited to add, 't to to can.

You mean the page that is titled "Manage Your CCF Subscriptions"? Nice.

btw, is there a difference between "Unsubscribe" and "Remove checked subscriptions"? I assume the latter is for a mass-delete, but "remove" sounds more permanent than "unsubscribe" so now I'm not so sure.

I never saw water based inks being used by the USPS while I work there. I worked for the BEP for 40 years.

In 1975 America produced a first by using gravure inks that were water-based, not solvent-based, on its International Women's Year commemorative stamp.