Question for Sellers
If you purchased a filled album with stamps, and intend to sell said stamps, either in sets or individually, do you soak the hinge or hinge remnants off the stamps before listing? Also, what might cause dirty water after soaking stamps (e.g., a collector who smoked, dust and dirt, etc.)?
Comments
I hope you like worms! You might have just opened a can of them! Just kidding.
For me, I have found that every album or album page I have worked with seems to be different. Some have hinges (the good ones)that pop right off. Others have hinges made by the folks who make gorilla glue. I typically don't soak the stamps but do my best to present as little of the hinge as possible without damaging the stamp. Sometimes, I fail at that effort. I suppose one could soak the hinge off or maybe, as some do, use a moistened qtip to wet the hinge enough to remove it. You do have to be careful with some stamps with fugitive inks and the like. You can do more damage that way than just leaving the hinge or remnant in place. I am certain that you will get ample advice on this issue from others.
As far as the dirty water, could be anything but most likely, as you said, just dust and dirt and dander from being around for a lot of years. Folks handling them, storing them in a dusty place, etc. Could also be the gum from the hinges themselves. Just crud....it's everywhere.
Greg
From years of selling, I've found especially for used stamps, the cleaner the back, the better. One of the issues with hinge remnants is that they are often used to cover faults. If we're talking hinges on a used front of book (and other "postal usage" stamps like special deliver, airmail, etc), then soaking the hinge off is a good practice. Beware soaking postage due stamps, as many have "fugitive inks" that will run in water. They can also be soaked, but you have to keep a very close eye on them, never soak them with any other issues, and the preference is 1 at a time. So the first trace of ink you see move, you take it out. But if you don't submerge them (there's a little bit of skill to this) then typically that's not a problem.
For Private Die issues, you want to be very careful about soaking as many of those are repaired, and the hinge may be part of keeping the item in a preventive deterioration state. There's nothin wrong with repaired stamps, so long as they are not concealed (they should be described in the listing when selling). This is also true of front of book, but occurs very frequently in Private Die. (I'd say as many as 20% will have some kind of repair in this set).
The dirty water is as Greg mentioned, often times lots of dirt and dust. But it can also be from accumulation of gum from both hinges and partial or regumming, which tends to turn the water yellowish pretty fast.
There is a term in philately known as "cleaning a stamp", but just soaking them in water does not constitute "cleaning". Cleaning is a chemical process, and generally frowned upon, but gentle cleaning in water leaves no long term traces, aside from stamps with the possibility of fugitive inks.
If you're dealing with foreign stamps, you'll want to check which are fugitive ink first. There's been other conversations in this forum about how to identify those.