Gum & Stamps: Part II


Our last post got us thinking about some of the problems stamp collectors encounter with self-adhesive stamps. These little nightmares (for stamp collectors, stamp users love them) can wreak havoc in a stamp collection.

We've already posted about the difficulty many stamp collectors have when they try to soak used self-adhesive stamps, so we won't go into that again right now. But do you remember the first self-adhesive stamps issued by the United States? If they were kept on their backing paper (instead of being used in the mail) their gum bled right through the stamps, onto their face.

That's not good. And who knows what will happen with all the much more recent self-adhesive stamps that are being issued by countries all over the world. For them, it's much too soon to tell whether their gum will move through the stamp paper and to the face of the stamps or to the edges of the backing paper. But the only way to prevent it is, once again, keeping your stamps in a cool, dry place. And even that might not work with self-adhesive stamps. So once again, is it time to consider collecting only used stamps?