Stamp collecting for beginners — 02. Handling and storage

A stamp that has survived decades in the post, in drawers and in other people’s albums can be ruined in an afternoon. Almost all the damage collectors do is accidental and avoidable: a fingerprint, a bent corner, a hinge torn off in a hurry, a damp monsoon in the wrong cupboard.

The habits below — tongs, mounts, careful soaking and a dry cupboard — cost very little, and they become automatic within a few weeks.

Tongs, always

Fingers leave oil and moisture, and both mark paper permanently — the mark often only shows years later. Pick stamps up with stamp tongs: flat-ended tweezers made for the purpose. Choose ones with spade-shaped or rounded tips; the edges are smooth and won’t scratch or pierce the paper.

Ordinary pointed tweezers from a chemist will puncture a stamp sooner or later. Tongs feel clumsy for the first hour and natural by the end of the first week.

Work on a clean, dry, uncluttered table, away from tea cups and open windows. A sheet of plain paper underneath makes stamps easy to see and stops them sliding.

Mounts, not hinges

For a long time stamps were fixed into albums with hinges — small folded strips of gummed paper. Hinges are cheap and still sold, but they disturb the gum on the back of an unused stamp, and if one is pulled off carelessly it can leave a thin patch in the paper. An unused stamp that has never been hinged is worth noticeably more than the same stamp with a hinge mark.

The modern alternatives hold the stamp without sticking anything to it:

• Mounts — clear plastic sleeves with a backing, cut to size and stuck to the album page. The stamp slides in and is never touched by adhesive.
• A stock book — a book of pages with clear strips that stamps tuck behind. Ideal for a growing collection, duplicates and anything not yet sorted.

Whatever you buy, avoid soft PVC pockets and pages. PVC releases chemicals over time that can stick to stamps and stain them. Look for pages described as polyester, polypropylene or “archival” and free of PVC.

If you inherit a collection with hinges, leave them alone until you know what you have. Old hinges on used stamps do little harm; removing them in a hurry does a great deal.

Getting used stamps off paper

Used stamps usually arrive stuck to envelope corners. Most older stamps come off safely in water:

• Trim the paper around the stamp, leaving a small margin.
• Float the pieces face up in a bowl of cool, clean water. Soak stamps on coloured or brightly printed envelopes separately — the dye can run onto other stamps.
• Wait until the stamp slides off by itself, usually a few minutes to half an hour. Never peel it.
• Rinse off any remaining gum, then dry the stamp face down on clean kitchen paper. Once it is nearly dry, press it flat between sheets of paper under a heavy book overnight.

Many modern self-adhesive stamps will not soak off at all, and some come apart if you try. Keep those on a neatly trimmed piece of envelope instead. Never soak unused stamps, and never soak anything on a whole envelope until you are sure the envelope itself isn’t the interesting part — a postmark or a route can be worth more than the stamp.

Light, damp and heat

Daylight fades colours, damp makes gum sticky and encourages brown spots (collectors call them “toning” or foxing), and heat speeds up both. All three are irreversible, so the aim is simply to keep stamps in the dark, dry and cool.

A closed album standing upright on a shelf, like a book, in a room that stays at a steady temperature, is better than any framed display. Standing albums upright rather than stacking them flat keeps the pages from pressing together.

Monsoon-proofing an album

In much of India the real enemy is humidity. During the monsoon, unused stamps can stick to the page or to each other, and spots can appear on paper that looked perfect in March.

• Keep albums and stock books away from outside walls, bathrooms and kitchens, and off the floor.
• For a small collection, an airtight plastic box with a few sachets of silica gel inside is enough. Gel with a colour indicator shows when it is saturated; it can be dried out by gently warming it and used again.
• Open the box and look through the albums every few months. Problems caught early can usually be stopped; problems found after a year cannot.
• Keep valuable unused stamps in mounts or stock-book strips rather than pressed against each other, so that softened gum has nothing to stick to.

Tongs, mounts, a careful soak and a dry cupboard: that is most of what conservation means for a collector. In the next lesson, we turn to the catalogue — how to read an entry, and what all those numbers mean.