Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
One of my recent experiments has been with stamps stained by 3M or Scotch tape. I have accumulated a couple dozen higher value stamps in this condition that I would like to clean. Using some cheap stamps I found bleach ruins a stamp even if used much diluted, the stamp paper yellows and the stains reappear in a few months. Peroxide whitens the paper but doesn't remove the stain. I have tried several cleaning solvents without success.
Does anyone have a solution or am I the only nut in the club trying to restore stamps? If I remove only the stains is the stamps value altered negatively?
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The staining is caused by the acid in the adhesive on the tape. The acid attacks and damages the paper fibers. That is why it reappears. Have you try "Archival Mist" or another type of acid neutralizer? You will have to neutralize the acid before you can attempt to restore the paper. However, you will not be able to get rid of any existing damage. Check with a library and see what they do to preserve old books and newspapers. They may have a decent remedy.
In philately, most collectors are of the mind that any alteration of a stamp is detrimental to the value of the stamp.
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Here is a link to a very good synopsis on stamp restoration. I would like to read the entire article.
http://www.ukphilately.org.uk/conserv_restore/restoration.html
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I have experimented a great deal with many stamping things but have destroyed them all.
The really big thing I learnt was not to make something look like it is something else.
Commonly called forgeries. We must destroy all experiments as someone will buy your stamp collection in the future and will not know that you changed some stamps to look like something else. Something to think about.
But I still love to experiment. KG5
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The stamps I would like to remove the stains from are in my own collection therefore not for sale. And after I am dead I don't care who gets stuck with them.
Only the edge stain caused by adhesive tape would be removed. If I were removing the cancel or trying to change the color of the stamp, or covering up a flaw with a cancel or a hinge then I would be attempting to deceive a potential future buyer.
But cleaning a stamp in my book is not forgery. If that were the case the Sistine Chapel and just about every piece of old art work, manuscript or book is now a forgery.
Long story short I have one more experiment in mind. After that I am writing the experts at 3M for advice.
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Hi Logistical1
Sorry about that! I was not having a go at your removing tape from stamps. I wish you the best with that. It will help many people if you can work it out.
I was responding to the title of your thread. "Stains on stamps". This means a lot of things for me and my mind set was deeply in the removal of rust from stamps.
Nothing to do with your comment on removing tape from stamps.
The title makes for a very interesting and broad topic.IMO
Always Happy Stamping. KG5
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Some of my very recent comments else where!
I have left out the user name and topic.
Very, very unpleasant topic. It is a topic that upsets many people.
It is seen as cheating, trying to make something look like something that it is not.
Trash is trash, the rust will come back and destroy what ever it is stored with. The spores from the rust can not be removed. In the plant world we burn such things because it is so dangerous and damaging.
I throw out stamps or covers with rust. Even if it is a $125 KGV. I have trashed over $2,000 worth of 1970 Captain Cook covers. But experimented with the growing of the rust and looked at how it spreads in the process of storing it with clean stamp material including covers.
Did your friend tell you about what I have mentioned?
I am trying to say this in a friendly way but it is unpleasant.
If a friendly person will not tell you who will?
Always Happy Stamping. KG5
And another very recent comment!
Some years ago now I rang a couple of stamp people that sell a fair amount of stamps and asked them what do they do with used stamps that have no cancel on them? My real motive was to find out what to call them.
The replies shocked me!
One said that have you not got a circular rubber stamp yet to make your own 1/4 corner cancels?
Another said that I have become very good at drawing them with a lead pencil on the stamp!
I still shake my head at these replies in disbelief!
So many people want to forge perfins, reperfs, misperfs, regums, reprints, change colours and all the rest of it.
The more we hear about these things happening, the more it hurts the honest people.
Even one of the bigger stamp dealers in Aussie called Blue Owl was busted making stamps look like OS perfin in recent times and they are trying very hard to make up ground now.
I was accused of selling a 11/2d Green KGV with a false perfin at a cost of $1.99.
I posted another perfin OS on (another forum) as I had it on sale on eBay. It was a 4d violet. As a large image it just did not like right to me.
(A forum friend) come to my rescue and we worked it out it was a reperf on one side and the perf OS could be questioned as well.
The stamp had sold by then so I refunded the $100 or so straight away.
So you can see why to make something look like it is something else is such an issue to many of us. KG5
And again another very recent comment!
The whole issue of cleaning is a problem. A big problem.
I agree (forum friend)!
We really do need to stop showing the dishonest people how to rip people off.
But then again we need to show others how easy it is to be ripped off but not to much reality. A little goes a long way.
Rust to me is a fungus as I have seen it inside covers with a web type growth to it.
As a horticulturist I know what I am looking at when it comes to the growth of rust. It has been a huge interest to me for over 15 years now and I have experimented with it. I have grown it and I have stopped its growth.
If you are storing your stamps at above 18c and above 65% humidity your stamps are going to get rust. Not maybe, your stamps will get rust. It is in the air, it is as simple as that.
It is very similar to rust that grows on roses for example.
To kill a fungus you need to treat it with three different types of fungicides. That is three totally different types of treatments that are not related.
Well that is the basics of it all. Tasmania is a great place to buy your stamps.
Always Happy Stamping. KG5
So now you can truly see the why of my comment.( IF I could workout how to do a smilie I would)
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KG5:
You've lost me on this discussion, perhaps you can clarify.
Stains on stamps an unpleasant topic? How can that be? It is a subject much worthy of discussion among stamp collectors.
Trash is trash? It may be someone else's treasure. Trash is even categorized on Stamporama's auction site:
have a look at "kiloware" or "penny lots", and these are but two examples!.
I agree with you that wilful misrepresentation of a stamp to indicate a greater value is unethical and, in some cases, criminal; however, who in Stamporama has never improved the appearance of a stamp in his or her collection? Or donated,traded or sold such a stamp? As I write this, I am pressing out minor creases in some of my recent stamp acquisitions. I do not see this as something underhanded.
Perhaps your sharp focus on Australia is giving you a down-under view of the world of postage stamp and its inhabitants.
Although I've never been to Australia, I have met considerable Australians and many of my friends have visited or worked in Australia. Their opinion? "Expensive, but...rather decent sort of people." Your comments, unless I misunderstand them, suggest it would be unwise of me to obtain stamps from Australians because of the likelihood of fraud.
Okay, I'll concede that Australian and Canadian climates are not comparable, and maybe rust is a serious stamp hazard where you live, but one can become a prisoner of one's fears. I have and do store stamps in the very environment that you suggest will result in stamp rust. As I am not prepared to suffer the inconvenience of keeping my collection in a climate-controlled locale, one can conclude that my stamps are at risk. So what? I am enjoying them as, collectively, we deteriorate happily together.
I have reread your comments several times but must confess I am baffled as to where they go. What am I missing here?
John Derry
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Hi John
You can have your opinions and I will have mine.
If you want to sell stamps that have been treated with bleach........etc
NO! I am TOTALLY insulted! Good Bye!
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Logical1
You made a comment that restoration of the Sistine Chapel, old artwork and manuscripts is not frowned upon. You are correct. However, the attitude and rule in philately and numismatics is that it is not acceptable to make any change to improve the appearance of a stamp, coin, currency, etc, by fixing any defects.
KG5 -
Maybe it's a language thing (I have been told that people in the USA forgot how to speak English a long time ago), but stamps do not "rust". I won't get into the science of this, but the stamp has to be made of iron in order to rust.
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I've got a few stamps with brown spots on them, gobbling up the gum apparently. I think it adds a mysterious aura of age to the stamp, as if it was uncovered in a tomb someplace. I'm all in favor of stains on stamp occurring naturally due to time. If i dropped a stamp in some oily food however, I'd toss it away in disgust.
Brad
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I am glad I could start a topic with so many passionate opinions.
One of the first collections I purchased from a seller on E-Bay (before PayPal) was a nice mid century MNH collection from an estate liquidation in Florida. I paid less then $100 for the album with shipping. When the album finally arrived I looked at the stamps and they all had a brown tinge and molted look. I initially thought I purchased a collection from a smoker; however when I showed it to a stamp friend he informed me it was stamp fungus, foxing or rust and to get them out of his house and dispose of them immediately. Lesson learned....
Unless a stamp is periodically cleaned, treated with chemicals to neutralize the PH and kept in a hermetic environment nature will take its course I will eventually have dust in my mounts. Being in a northern climate my stamps may last a bit longer then others.
I know the APA takes a dim view on most cleaning and preservation methods but I think they are being short sighted. If some one spilled coffee on an inverted jenny and it had to be cleaned I don't think there would be a fuss. But if an average collector cleans a stamp it is suddenly a fraud. I would never condone cleaning a stamp to deceive a collector. Cleaning a stamp to enhance the visual enjoyment of my own collection is acceptable.
Bleach does not work on stains, it will whiten the paper and fade some stains but the stain eventually returns and the paper yellows. But professional archivists do clean paper and preserve books and documents for future generations. Why should a stamp be any different? If a stamp has been cleaned by a professional archivist I would challenge the APA to prove the stamp had been cleaned.
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Michael 78651:
I highly respect your wealth of knowledge and expertise but do not agree with your comment,
"the attitude and rule in philately and numismatics is that it is not acceptable to make any
change to improve the appearance of a stamp, coin,.. etc."
Marketing attitudes have changed (whether I like it or not) and the rule (I question
its existence) is flouted or observed in the breach. My exposure to the media indicates
it has become common practice to describe some stamps for sale or auction as
"expertly regummed" or "tear professionally repaired" and so on. Counterfeits, frauds,
forgeries, fakes, enhancements, copies, and so forth abound and are openly advertised
as such, even on (gasp!) Stamporama.
I have a copy of the La Gioconda because I can not afford the real thing; similarly,
I have some copies, reprints, forgeries and counterfeits in my stamp collection for the same
reason, probably more than I'm aware of. When it comes to postage stamp defects, I stand by my
earlier comment, "...who among us has not...?"
In my opinion as a hobbyist, there are no absolutes in stamp collecting. That's one of its
many attractions for me.
John Derry
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John, you made my point.
If repairs and such were accepted in philately, items that have been so "altered", or otherwise "restored", by some or all of the means you stated when revealed in sales descriptions would not reduce the value of the item.
Do works of art, books or other collectibles get the "restored" label? Yes they do for the most part, and such restoration preserves or enhances the value of the item.
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Well, heck, Michael, I'm always glad to be supportive.
John
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I always appreciate a helping hand! 
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In following this thread, i noticed two things that bear emphasis: first there. Are no absolutes, which leads to the corollary that one can collect what one wants, including repaired or altered stamps; and truth in advertising is essential. A repaired stamp is no intrinsically bad; it's the failure to properly describe it as such that is.
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Yes, I agree with you 100%. I'd bet that a good number of us have stamps in our collections that are forgeries (I do), counterfeits (I do), repaired (I do), regummed, reperfed, damaged (I do), etc. (I probably do), sitting there as space fillers in albums, a collection upon themselves, purchased because they look good and cost much less than a good original, and other reasons. And, yes, it is a hobby, and we should collect what we want and have fun while we're doing it. Like you said, I too, don't have any problem with "restored" stamps. Just don't try to sell me one without telling me that it has been altered.
Where I believe the difference lies between stamps, coins and other "artwork" like the Sistine Chapel or the Mona Lisa, is that there are millions of stamps, but only one of those. So, preserving the "one" will protect the work of art. For the most part, if one has a defective stamp, there is usually another one around somewhere that can be obtained at a reasonable price to replace it, unless you are trying to get the British Guiana Scott #13.
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Since I am new here, I have been spending some time here and there, reading some of the topics all of you discuss, including this one.
Members here have some real lively discussions....
I enjoy reading through these old topics
Clayton
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Yes it´s funny reading the thread, seeing the different points of views. Stains on stamps somehow turned into altering a stamp, and got me wondering, what is altering a stamp? And where is the line drawn for cleaning a stamp? As a collector of used stamps I often wash stamps (off covers or cut ofs) And sometimes a stamp which I thought was printed on grey paper turns white (and the water turns grey/brown). I have also washed old stamps hoping that dirt from hundreds of fingers disappear. I only use clean water and often the stamp gets prettier. Is that altering a stamp? Or had the stamp already been altered by dirt, and I merely return it to original?
Sometimes when I buy stamps they have up to 5 hinges or more on the back. Is putting a hinge on a stamp and alteration? Or is washing them off again and alteration?
I guess we all draw our lines where we consider it to be right.
"Drawing" cancels on a stamp is in my book considered fraud and can never be excused.
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I think you will get different answers from different collectors to all of your questions.
The only consistent answer I could see is if you hinge a mint stamp, yes, you have altered it. In the same vein, if you attach a stamp to an envelope to mail, you have altered the stamp from mint to used.
I don't have a problem with stamps that have been cleaned, or where the sulfurette (often mistakenly called "oxidation") has been removed, unfolding a corner/perf crease.
Probably the best definition is a stamp is altered any time someone does something to it that changes the stamp's appearance (for good or ill) from what it was before the change was made. A stamp can be altered many times by different collectors who own it through the years.
Unacceptable alterations would be reperfing, regumming, cutting perfs off, cleaning cancels of the stamp, using chemicals to change or remove ink colors, adding fake overprints or surcharges, and other changes done to make a stamp appear to be what it is not for the purpose of defrauding collectors.
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I purchase what I call rescue collections. These are typically a child’s collection or a collection from someone who didn't know about, couldn't afford or just didn't care about hinges. Stamps are often taped, glued or pasted to pages. These rescue stamps provide me with hours of amusement and occasionally a decent stamp or two.
One of my recent experiments has been with stamps stained by 3M or Scotch tape. I have accumulated a couple dozen higher value stamps in this condition that I would like to clean. Using some cheap stamps I found bleach ruins a stamp even if used much diluted, the stamp paper yellows and the stains reappear in a few months. Peroxide whitens the paper but doesn't remove the stain. I have tried several cleaning solvents without success.
Does anyone have a solution or am I the only nut in the club trying to restore stamps? If I remove only the stains is the stamps value altered negatively?
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10:57:57pm
re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
The staining is caused by the acid in the adhesive on the tape. The acid attacks and damages the paper fibers. That is why it reappears. Have you try "Archival Mist" or another type of acid neutralizer? You will have to neutralize the acid before you can attempt to restore the paper. However, you will not be able to get rid of any existing damage. Check with a library and see what they do to preserve old books and newspapers. They may have a decent remedy.
In philately, most collectors are of the mind that any alteration of a stamp is detrimental to the value of the stamp.
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re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
Here is a link to a very good synopsis on stamp restoration. I would like to read the entire article.
http://www.ukphilately.org.uk/conserv_restore/restoration.html
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re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
I have experimented a great deal with many stamping things but have destroyed them all.
The really big thing I learnt was not to make something look like it is something else.
Commonly called forgeries. We must destroy all experiments as someone will buy your stamp collection in the future and will not know that you changed some stamps to look like something else. Something to think about.
But I still love to experiment. KG5
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re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
The stamps I would like to remove the stains from are in my own collection therefore not for sale. And after I am dead I don't care who gets stuck with them.
Only the edge stain caused by adhesive tape would be removed. If I were removing the cancel or trying to change the color of the stamp, or covering up a flaw with a cancel or a hinge then I would be attempting to deceive a potential future buyer.
But cleaning a stamp in my book is not forgery. If that were the case the Sistine Chapel and just about every piece of old art work, manuscript or book is now a forgery.
Long story short I have one more experiment in mind. After that I am writing the experts at 3M for advice.
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re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
Hi Logistical1
Sorry about that! I was not having a go at your removing tape from stamps. I wish you the best with that. It will help many people if you can work it out.
I was responding to the title of your thread. "Stains on stamps". This means a lot of things for me and my mind set was deeply in the removal of rust from stamps.
Nothing to do with your comment on removing tape from stamps.
The title makes for a very interesting and broad topic.IMO
Always Happy Stamping. KG5
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re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
Some of my very recent comments else where!
I have left out the user name and topic.
Very, very unpleasant topic. It is a topic that upsets many people.
It is seen as cheating, trying to make something look like something that it is not.
Trash is trash, the rust will come back and destroy what ever it is stored with. The spores from the rust can not be removed. In the plant world we burn such things because it is so dangerous and damaging.
I throw out stamps or covers with rust. Even if it is a $125 KGV. I have trashed over $2,000 worth of 1970 Captain Cook covers. But experimented with the growing of the rust and looked at how it spreads in the process of storing it with clean stamp material including covers.
Did your friend tell you about what I have mentioned?
I am trying to say this in a friendly way but it is unpleasant.
If a friendly person will not tell you who will?
Always Happy Stamping. KG5
And another very recent comment!
Some years ago now I rang a couple of stamp people that sell a fair amount of stamps and asked them what do they do with used stamps that have no cancel on them? My real motive was to find out what to call them.
The replies shocked me!
One said that have you not got a circular rubber stamp yet to make your own 1/4 corner cancels?
Another said that I have become very good at drawing them with a lead pencil on the stamp!
I still shake my head at these replies in disbelief!
So many people want to forge perfins, reperfs, misperfs, regums, reprints, change colours and all the rest of it.
The more we hear about these things happening, the more it hurts the honest people.
Even one of the bigger stamp dealers in Aussie called Blue Owl was busted making stamps look like OS perfin in recent times and they are trying very hard to make up ground now.
I was accused of selling a 11/2d Green KGV with a false perfin at a cost of $1.99.
I posted another perfin OS on (another forum) as I had it on sale on eBay. It was a 4d violet. As a large image it just did not like right to me.
(A forum friend) come to my rescue and we worked it out it was a reperf on one side and the perf OS could be questioned as well.
The stamp had sold by then so I refunded the $100 or so straight away.
So you can see why to make something look like it is something else is such an issue to many of us. KG5
And again another very recent comment!
The whole issue of cleaning is a problem. A big problem.
I agree (forum friend)!
We really do need to stop showing the dishonest people how to rip people off.
But then again we need to show others how easy it is to be ripped off but not to much reality. A little goes a long way.
Rust to me is a fungus as I have seen it inside covers with a web type growth to it.
As a horticulturist I know what I am looking at when it comes to the growth of rust. It has been a huge interest to me for over 15 years now and I have experimented with it. I have grown it and I have stopped its growth.
If you are storing your stamps at above 18c and above 65% humidity your stamps are going to get rust. Not maybe, your stamps will get rust. It is in the air, it is as simple as that.
It is very similar to rust that grows on roses for example.
To kill a fungus you need to treat it with three different types of fungicides. That is three totally different types of treatments that are not related.
Well that is the basics of it all. Tasmania is a great place to buy your stamps.
Always Happy Stamping. KG5
So now you can truly see the why of my comment.( IF I could workout how to do a smilie I would)
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The past is a foreign country, they do things different there.
30 Mar 2012
02:03:47pm
re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
KG5:
You've lost me on this discussion, perhaps you can clarify.
Stains on stamps an unpleasant topic? How can that be? It is a subject much worthy of discussion among stamp collectors.
Trash is trash? It may be someone else's treasure. Trash is even categorized on Stamporama's auction site:
have a look at "kiloware" or "penny lots", and these are but two examples!.
I agree with you that wilful misrepresentation of a stamp to indicate a greater value is unethical and, in some cases, criminal; however, who in Stamporama has never improved the appearance of a stamp in his or her collection? Or donated,traded or sold such a stamp? As I write this, I am pressing out minor creases in some of my recent stamp acquisitions. I do not see this as something underhanded.
Perhaps your sharp focus on Australia is giving you a down-under view of the world of postage stamp and its inhabitants.
Although I've never been to Australia, I have met considerable Australians and many of my friends have visited or worked in Australia. Their opinion? "Expensive, but...rather decent sort of people." Your comments, unless I misunderstand them, suggest it would be unwise of me to obtain stamps from Australians because of the likelihood of fraud.
Okay, I'll concede that Australian and Canadian climates are not comparable, and maybe rust is a serious stamp hazard where you live, but one can become a prisoner of one's fears. I have and do store stamps in the very environment that you suggest will result in stamp rust. As I am not prepared to suffer the inconvenience of keeping my collection in a climate-controlled locale, one can conclude that my stamps are at risk. So what? I am enjoying them as, collectively, we deteriorate happily together.
I have reread your comments several times but must confess I am baffled as to where they go. What am I missing here?
John Derry
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re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
Hi John
You can have your opinions and I will have mine.
If you want to sell stamps that have been treated with bleach........etc
NO! I am TOTALLY insulted! Good Bye!
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08:53:11pm
re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
Logical1
You made a comment that restoration of the Sistine Chapel, old artwork and manuscripts is not frowned upon. You are correct. However, the attitude and rule in philately and numismatics is that it is not acceptable to make any change to improve the appearance of a stamp, coin, currency, etc, by fixing any defects.
KG5 -
Maybe it's a language thing (I have been told that people in the USA forgot how to speak English a long time ago), but stamps do not "rust". I won't get into the science of this, but the stamp has to be made of iron in order to rust.
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re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
I've got a few stamps with brown spots on them, gobbling up the gum apparently. I think it adds a mysterious aura of age to the stamp, as if it was uncovered in a tomb someplace. I'm all in favor of stains on stamp occurring naturally due to time. If i dropped a stamp in some oily food however, I'd toss it away in disgust.
Brad
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re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
I am glad I could start a topic with so many passionate opinions.
One of the first collections I purchased from a seller on E-Bay (before PayPal) was a nice mid century MNH collection from an estate liquidation in Florida. I paid less then $100 for the album with shipping. When the album finally arrived I looked at the stamps and they all had a brown tinge and molted look. I initially thought I purchased a collection from a smoker; however when I showed it to a stamp friend he informed me it was stamp fungus, foxing or rust and to get them out of his house and dispose of them immediately. Lesson learned....
Unless a stamp is periodically cleaned, treated with chemicals to neutralize the PH and kept in a hermetic environment nature will take its course I will eventually have dust in my mounts. Being in a northern climate my stamps may last a bit longer then others.
I know the APA takes a dim view on most cleaning and preservation methods but I think they are being short sighted. If some one spilled coffee on an inverted jenny and it had to be cleaned I don't think there would be a fuss. But if an average collector cleans a stamp it is suddenly a fraud. I would never condone cleaning a stamp to deceive a collector. Cleaning a stamp to enhance the visual enjoyment of my own collection is acceptable.
Bleach does not work on stains, it will whiten the paper and fade some stains but the stain eventually returns and the paper yellows. But professional archivists do clean paper and preserve books and documents for future generations. Why should a stamp be any different? If a stamp has been cleaned by a professional archivist I would challenge the APA to prove the stamp had been cleaned.
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The past is a foreign country, they do things different there.
31 Mar 2012
03:21:47pm
re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
Michael 78651:
I highly respect your wealth of knowledge and expertise but do not agree with your comment,
"the attitude and rule in philately and numismatics is that it is not acceptable to make any
change to improve the appearance of a stamp, coin,.. etc."
Marketing attitudes have changed (whether I like it or not) and the rule (I question
its existence) is flouted or observed in the breach. My exposure to the media indicates
it has become common practice to describe some stamps for sale or auction as
"expertly regummed" or "tear professionally repaired" and so on. Counterfeits, frauds,
forgeries, fakes, enhancements, copies, and so forth abound and are openly advertised
as such, even on (gasp!) Stamporama.
I have a copy of the La Gioconda because I can not afford the real thing; similarly,
I have some copies, reprints, forgeries and counterfeits in my stamp collection for the same
reason, probably more than I'm aware of. When it comes to postage stamp defects, I stand by my
earlier comment, "...who among us has not...?"
In my opinion as a hobbyist, there are no absolutes in stamp collecting. That's one of its
many attractions for me.
John Derry
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02:55:27pm
re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
John, you made my point.
If repairs and such were accepted in philately, items that have been so "altered", or otherwise "restored", by some or all of the means you stated when revealed in sales descriptions would not reduce the value of the item.
Do works of art, books or other collectibles get the "restored" label? Yes they do for the most part, and such restoration preserves or enhances the value of the item.
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The past is a foreign country, they do things different there.
01 Apr 2012
09:39:32pm
re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
Well, heck, Michael, I'm always glad to be supportive.
John
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10:17:25pm
re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
I always appreciate a helping hand!
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re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
In following this thread, i noticed two things that bear emphasis: first there. Are no absolutes, which leads to the corollary that one can collect what one wants, including repaired or altered stamps; and truth in advertising is essential. A repaired stamp is no intrinsically bad; it's the failure to properly describe it as such that is.
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10:41:21am
re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
Yes, I agree with you 100%. I'd bet that a good number of us have stamps in our collections that are forgeries (I do), counterfeits (I do), repaired (I do), regummed, reperfed, damaged (I do), etc. (I probably do), sitting there as space fillers in albums, a collection upon themselves, purchased because they look good and cost much less than a good original, and other reasons. And, yes, it is a hobby, and we should collect what we want and have fun while we're doing it. Like you said, I too, don't have any problem with "restored" stamps. Just don't try to sell me one without telling me that it has been altered.
Where I believe the difference lies between stamps, coins and other "artwork" like the Sistine Chapel or the Mona Lisa, is that there are millions of stamps, but only one of those. So, preserving the "one" will protect the work of art. For the most part, if one has a defective stamp, there is usually another one around somewhere that can be obtained at a reasonable price to replace it, unless you are trying to get the British Guiana Scott #13.
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re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
Since I am new here, I have been spending some time here and there, reading some of the topics all of you discuss, including this one.
Members here have some real lively discussions....
I enjoy reading through these old topics
Clayton
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re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
Yes it´s funny reading the thread, seeing the different points of views. Stains on stamps somehow turned into altering a stamp, and got me wondering, what is altering a stamp? And where is the line drawn for cleaning a stamp? As a collector of used stamps I often wash stamps (off covers or cut ofs) And sometimes a stamp which I thought was printed on grey paper turns white (and the water turns grey/brown). I have also washed old stamps hoping that dirt from hundreds of fingers disappear. I only use clean water and often the stamp gets prettier. Is that altering a stamp? Or had the stamp already been altered by dirt, and I merely return it to original?
Sometimes when I buy stamps they have up to 5 hinges or more on the back. Is putting a hinge on a stamp and alteration? Or is washing them off again and alteration?
I guess we all draw our lines where we consider it to be right.
"Drawing" cancels on a stamp is in my book considered fraud and can never be excused.
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03:40:33pm
re: What do you so with Stains on your Stamps?
I think you will get different answers from different collectors to all of your questions.
The only consistent answer I could see is if you hinge a mint stamp, yes, you have altered it. In the same vein, if you attach a stamp to an envelope to mail, you have altered the stamp from mint to used.
I don't have a problem with stamps that have been cleaned, or where the sulfurette (often mistakenly called "oxidation") has been removed, unfolding a corner/perf crease.
Probably the best definition is a stamp is altered any time someone does something to it that changes the stamp's appearance (for good or ill) from what it was before the change was made. A stamp can be altered many times by different collectors who own it through the years.
Unacceptable alterations would be reperfing, regumming, cutting perfs off, cleaning cancels of the stamp, using chemicals to change or remove ink colors, adding fake overprints or surcharges, and other changes done to make a stamp appear to be what it is not for the purpose of defrauding collectors.
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