Stamp Collection Care

Just like stamp collection requires a lot of time similarly
taking good care of those stamps is vitally important.
Stamp Collection involves a schematic arrangement of
the collected stamps and preserving their quality. Stamps
having poor quality won’t make a good impression on
anyone looking at your stamp collection efforts.

Soaking Stamps

At times you receive a stamp pasted on an envelope.
You might have to get rid of the envelope to add that
stamp to your collection. Tearing it out would mean loss
of quality and possible damage to the stamp. Before
separating the stamp from its cover evaluate its worth
with and without the cover. At times old stamps with
covers are worth more than those without the cover as
they have interesting details of postal history. You could
refer your query to your stamp club mates to decide if you
need to keep the cover or no.

Once you have made up your mind to separate the stamp
from its cover, cut finely around the stamp close enough
to keep the teeth around the edges intact. Then soak this
stamp cut out in lukewarm water, spread in a saucer. Allow
the paper to float till the stamp is separated from the paper.
You may rub off the remaining adhesive at the backside of
the stamp with your fingertips. Now you need to dry these
stamps using either a newspaper or an absorbent paper. Once
these stamps dry they develop wrinkles on them, which could
be removed by placing them between the pages or beneath a
heavy book.

Stamp Collection Album

Arranging your stamps is an important part of stamp collection.
This ensures better quality and gives more life to your stamp
collection, when preserved in an appropriate manner. There
are different ways to store stamps. Easiest would be to sort
stamps and put them in separate envelopes. Envelopes are
available in different sizes and ones having a transparent portion
called as the glassine envelopes would be preferred by stamp
collectors as the stamps are visible through it. This would be
the most basic way to store your stamps. If you want to store
your stamps for a higher durability you could make use of stock
books. Stock books or folders have a set of transparent pockets
where in stamps could be arranged depending upon their sorting.
This ensures durability but not a very good presentation of your
stamp collection as the stamps are in groups. Individual stamps
cannot be viewed.

Making a Stamp album for your collection would be the ultimate
way to preserve your hard earned stamps. You could design your
own stamp album by punching a set of handmade paper together
either with a ribbon or getting it spiral bounded. Choose a good
color for the paper on to which stamps would be prominently visible.
You may choose to stick stamps on either side of this paper or just
on the right hand side, making use of special peel able gum that
will not harm stamps.

Another option would be to purchase a ready made album having
printed information that would help to sort stamps into different
subjects. This seems to be a good initiative for budding stamp
collectors. The only trouble here is that a readymade album restricts
any kind of creative presentation to preserve stamps. When you
create your own stamp album you could add on as many more
supplement s as you wish to. Moreover you could design various
sections within your album such as Sort by type – animals, ships,
nations, country, etc. You may add a separate section for covers.
Used and unused/mint stamps could have separate pages allotted
too. Remember to make use of stamp mounts while you stick mint
stamps to your album. This will help to restore its quality and
preserving the adhesive at the back of the stamp.