Problem With Drying Book

Hello everyone.

I recently bought a leuchttrum drying book and it seems that my soaking/drying process needs some correction as lots of stamps get glued on the book pages.

Here the process, can you tell me where I made the mistakes ?

I get a brunch of Japanese, Iraninan and Seychelles stamps. Some self-adhésives, some normal glue.

I soak them in cold water then change the water 3 times until the water remains clean.

I put them on a cloath to remove the excess of water then put them in the drying book. The gum side is put on the plastic sheet side.

I wait one or two days, lots of stamps are glued to the plastic sheets…

So where did I miss ? I know some here don't use drying books, but that's not the point here, I know of other methods, I just want to be able to use those books correctly.

Thanks for your help

Self-adhesive labels, especially, may have gum that does not dissolve completely in water leaving a sticky residue after soaking. I cannot say I have heard of this issue with traditionally gummed stamps. However, if you soak them together, the gum from the self adhesives may migrate onto other stamps. So, soak them separately.

Note that self-adhesive gums used are not the same in all countries.

Dutch and Belgian collectors sometimes use talcum powder. After soaking, you might want to use a tool like a cotton bud to remove any residue, and maybe use talcum powder on the back of the stamps.

I often find that residual gum remains after soaking, and I now always dry stamps face down. Not an option with a drying book.

GeoffHa : how do you avoid the curling ?

NSK : I heard of talcum and used it years ago. As I don'y know the long time effect, I would rather avoid this solution.

I used different baths to avoid gum migration. The stamps that are glued have all kind of gum (not only the self adhesive ones).

Well, this Leuchttrum drying book was supposed to be a miracle, better than my old Desert drying book. It's quite a disapointment.

Silhat: unfortunately, I often don't! You're then in the world of putting the dry stamps in a stock-page and under a weight.

I have to say that at one point I was skeptical of talcum powder but that changed a few years ago. I purchased a large lot of "new issues" that had been stored in glassines since the 1950's with talcum powder. The stamps were MNH and fresh as the day they were born. Absolutely zero degradation of any type from the powder. Obviously, you need to be certain there are no oils present in the powder.

It needs to be shouted:
TALCUM POWDER HAS NO PLACE ANYWHERE NEAR A STAMP COLLECTION!
It is unfortauate that this idea has taken root with some. It is not a good archival practice. Period.

I will put you down as a maybe.

Would talcum powder be appropriate on a Baby Zepp?

Given that talcum powder is used in papermaking and is chemically inert I would love to hear some science behind the objections to using it near stamps.

Talc is rather off-topic to drying books, so maybe this entire tangent needs to be split off, but here goes anyway.


In short, there is a considerale difference between talc embedded/captured within the structure of the paper versus loose talcum powder.

Any meaningful conclusions should be built on actual and repeatable testing and measurement, rather than anecdotal "I had a problem or I didn't have a problem" etc. Toward that end, I did a quick test:

1. Several pieces of the margin area were cut from a Bicentennial souvenir sheet (Scott 1686) to use a 48-year old example of printed stamp paper.
2. A commercial healthcare brand of talcum powder was applied to the selvage, shaken loosely back and forth, and the excess shaken off, thus leaving a light coating of the residual powder.
3. A second piece of (untalced) stamp paper was laid ink side down (thus ink-to-ink), and the two pieces of paper rubbed back and forth 20x with very gentle pressure. (To be more scientific and repeatable, I should have made a sled-block of known weight to calculate/report a true psi.)
4. The talced stamp was wiped off with a towel and examined with very oblique light. The presence of light surface scratching was evident.
Unfortunately, I don't have an easy way to represent this with a micro-photo. I would also note that many of us have our albums in dust cases to keep the dust out, so why apply talcum powder?

The other major use of talcum is to treat the back of self-adhesive stamps. Proper and complete removal of the self adhesive layer makes talcum use unnecessary.

Add: I make this post built on an ACS-accredited degree in chemistry and a Master's in packaging technology, so I have some familiarity with this topic.

So I use Luke warm water to soak and then will either put them in a desert drying book or face down on paper towels with newspaper in between. When they are almost dry I put them on acid free paper between heavy books to prevent curling. Some adhesives are difficult and the process needs to be repeated. About 1/2 to 1% of the stamps will not release from the drying book, and a choice needs to be made.

Talc is significantly less abrasive than most plastics, as it is considered one of the softest minerals on Earth, with a Mohs hardness of 1, making it much less likely to scratch or abrade other materials, including most plastics; hence, plastic is generally considered more abrasive than talc. That would mean that we should not be using modern mounts. For reference your fingernail is a Mohs 2.5.

PS: As far as I know the stamps I have had with talc applied were not rubbed back and forth 20 times which is probably not the smartest thing to do with stamps anyway whether they are bathed in talc or naked.

Rogdcam,
I am well aware of the Mohs scale since grade school, but note that quartz (mohs=7) is a common contaminant of talc deposits.
Plus, as I noted, I applied very gentle pressure and easily produced ACTUAL TEST RESULTS.
Please provide a citation for your "Talc is significantly less abrasive than most plastics ..." post, as talc is a powder and plastic is generally smooth.
And what are your science credentials?
Ultimately, we may have to agree to disagree, but you are reducing the number of people who would ever be interested in buying your collection.
Thanks

Talcum powder is used in the printing process to prevent pages from sticking together. This is done at the very end of the process in the stacking stages. Where the printed sheets are coming off the press and stacks one on top of another. I can not see talcum powder harming a stamp.

I proved it myself with the simple test outlined above.
I give up.