Removal & Preservation of Self Adhesive Postage Stamps 

I prefer the way Australia Post website recommends soaking the self adhesive stamps in water that was boiled and very hot for ten minutes. They mention that the oil based adhesive is stuck to a water based adhesive that is attached to the stamp. The heat helps the water eventually reach the water soluble layer to lift it from the oil adhesive. I tried this with stamps from hong kong, germany and australia and it worked well.

I just inherited a large (well, large to me) stamp collection that my mother-in-law had sitting in her spare room. I'm on the hunt for the best way to start going through and storing them for my own collection. This was a great tip. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you so much! I sure do miss the water activated stamps that would slide right off. These newer ones have been driving me crazy and practically ruined stamp collecting for me. I can't wait to try this. I don't have any of the clear plastic stamp cards, but I plan to use archival-quality page protectors instead. Should work just as well. I think you just rescued another philatelist!

I Have been collecting for many years and I needed to find a way to remove the self adhesive stamps. I collect high value US and this is the best way I have found to do this process Thank you so much

ive always used the acetone and talc method ,but ill have to give this a go ,cheers from the UK

Great job ! Thanks for sharing this tested method !

Very detailed explanation and ThanQ! I have had great difficult to take off these stubborn UK self adhesive stamps using warm water. Will try your method and hopefully this should do the trick!

You should do more videos !! :3 id love too see some of your collections.

this man is awesome. he should be doing this for a living .awesome video.

I believe it was in the autumn of 1974 when I was 14 that the first U.S. adhesive stamp came out and it was a Christmas stamp. My Dad worked for the post office at the time and he came home with two sheets. One to give me for my collection and the other for Christmas cards though he did let me keep a corner block from the second sheet. I put both in a glassine and tucked them in my album until I got around to mounting them properly. I'd forgotten about them and then a few years later I got to them and discovered to my dismay that they were all ruined by the glue that had been used. Disgusted I vowed never to collect another self adhesive stamp again. When they became popular in the 1990's I refused to buy any. I stopped buying new U.S. stamps altogether around 20 years ago. I now concentrate on only filling in missing spaces from before that period. That's how I personally deal with self adhesive stamps. I just don't consider them to be real stamps and therefore not collectible.

More videos please! This one was great! Will help a lot with the self-adhesive ones.

Thank you so very much for showing this way, it seems so much better then putting it in water, I'll try it this way,once again. many thanks .

Fantastic idea. I will definitely try this.

Thanks for your advise mate from Australia I'll give it a go .

The main problem (once a method is chosen) is TIME spent. If you are doing only a handful every so often, no problem. But if you are way behind in mounting, have a 1,000 bag mixture, etc. that you want to remove all backing, it's just too tedious, too much time involved. As for buying new mint stamps-if you can afford to, want to-OK. Most countries however have increased their postage rates dramatically as well as number of issues put out yearly, making Mint New Issue collecting for most (especially young people) prohibitive.

Now this is a very interesting idea! I’ll have to try it out. Thank you!

I actually stopped removing from the envelopes because they were turning to mush and stopped putting them in my album. My stamps remained in a huge box from frustration. Thank you and I'm gong out to buy adhesive remover. I don't know why I don't already have it since I'm an avid scrapbooker. I'm back in business

That is a very good method.

very impresived methods to learn from.

Best advice! Thanks a lot!