To Soak or Not To Soak....

Today's mail brought a nice mailing from TradeOnlyStamps exchange partner Michael Ravis of West Virginia. Michael's note said, "Enclosed are Forever-rate stamps that can not be soaked with water - so that is why they have the backing of the envelope. I saw that there is a way to remove the backing but seems like too much time, compared to the old-fashion way with just water." 

The self-adhesive stamp wave has caused ripples through my soaking process. There's nothing worse than immersing a handful or two of on-paper stamps only to realize that the self-adhesive ones are NEVER going to come off the backing paper. And now you have a bunch of wrinkly-paper stamps on your hands! Or worse, ripping the layers of the wet stamp apart creating misery.

To try to paper over this problem, I created my own DNS list - Do Not Soak. I haven't found an official list  anywhere, and this list has worked so far. It's on a post-it note, stuck inside the lid of my tea-box of world stamps to soak. So far, Canada's self-adhesive issues have not been an issue.

I know there are chemical solutions for sale that break the adhesive-to-paper barrier, but they cost money, unlike scissors.

So, knowing a stamp is self-adhesive, either by my list or the appearance of its perforations, I happily close-crop around them, keeping paper and all together. I still use stamp hinges, but I suppose tape or some other paper-to-paper glue or adhesive would work equally well in my album.

Two quadrilled pages of recent self-adhesive U.S. stamps-on-paper, mounted by year of issue, from my U.S. album. Looks like I already have one or two - no problem, duplicates will go on to another collector in my small network!

My U.S. album's homemade cover (above). I recognized Gerald Ford's likeness by Michael Deas. I featured Michael's creations in this previous post.