Stamp Lift

Among the many rare, and otherwise, pieces of equipment found in the hands of stamp collectors is the Stamp Lift. This device is made up of three pieces of plastic that form an airtight box with a perforated center tray and three pieces of felt that are soaked with water. Taken together when moistened, you have an airtight humidity chamber that allows you (if you have lots of patience) to carefully remove stamps from paper and at the same time retain most of the original gum. With this device you can remove unused stamps stuck on paper and turn them into almost mint. You can take stamps covered with hinge pieces and turn these also into almost mint. With a lot of practice, I have seen people make gum thins disappear (not paper thins) and the stamps appear almost mint. The drawbacks to this device are that lifted stamps are never really quite what they were when they were sold at the PO, and lifting stamps is very slow and time consuming. In addition, unless you are VERY careful, you can very easily ruin a lot of presentable stamps. In any event, the Stamp Lift is a good investment for almost any collector, except those in a hurry. I use my Stamp Lift to salvage stuck down mint stamps from collections that I buy. I also use it occasionally to remove hinge build up on old stamps. You MUST practice with this tool, and you cannot walk away and forget that there is something in it. Leaving stamps in the lift will cause the gum to run into the paper resulting in a terminal mess. It often takes almost an hour to loosen a stamp. In addition, you should pull only one stamp out of the tray at a time, and you need to work fast for the stamps dry a lot quicker than you would think. After you have separated the stamp from whatever, place it gum side down on the lid where there is no printing. It will pop free when it is dry.

Watermark Trays

Watermark trays are little, square, black glass or plastic trays used for watermarking. You will need one. Years ago they were made from black glass. Now they are plastic. The plastic ones are cheaper; but I worry that the solvents used for watermarking might leach something out of the plastic, so try to find a glass one if you can. The trays can also be used to soak one or two stamps in an emergency. Wipe your tray out before you use it, to remove dust and finger oil. You should also have an airtight bottle handy for pouring the unused portion of your fluid when you are done watermarking your stamps. This saves fluid and you from breathing anymore of it than is necessary.

Tongs

Using your fingers can easily stain or crease a stamp. One folded perforation or one missing perforation can, and usually does, ruin the value of a stamp. So use tongs. With very little practice you will find that sorting stamps with tongs is much faster than using your big fingers. If you are a beginner, start with a spoon-tip or spade-tip tong. The reason for this is that until one is practiced at using tongs it is very easy to put a hole in a stamp using the pointed-end tongs. The spoon-tip or spade-tip tongs are better in all respects for the novist collector and should be the only type considered by anyone but a seasoned collector especially when used to remove mounted stamps. After you have been using tongs for awhile, you may prefer to stick with the spoon or spade type or you may want to switch to the pointed-tip tongs. The advantage to the pointed-tip tongs is that it is much easier to sort stamps with them; but since they have a much smaller gripping surface, they are much better at pulling off perfs and putting holes in stamps when unmounting stamps or stripping off hinges. Unless you sort a lot of stamps, you may be happier with the spoon or spade tip. For moving wet stamps after soaking or using a stamp lift, the spoon or spade-tip tong is a superior tool.

There is no reason that a pair of stamp tongs can't last longer than you do, so buy quality. Get several good quality, German-made stamp tongs. The ones I use I have had for years. They were made for Showgard in Germany. Beware; there are a lot of cheap tongs around. At a local stamp show last year, not one dealer had decent tongs to sell. Buy one pair and try them out. If they work well, get more of the same kind. I have nine pairs of stamp tongs (tongs have little feet that cause them to wonder off seeking other employment). I would suggest the average collector needs at least three pair of tongs as they are very easy to misplace. When you buy tongs, always take them for a test drive. Make sure that the spring is not too weak. If it is, the tongs will become very aggravating and you will quit using them. Make sure that the spring is not too stiff. Tongs with very stiff springs will make your hands ache. Buy quality tongs that feel good to use. This is not an area to price shop.

Tongs come in different lengths, short and long, or at least they did when I bought my last pair. Short tongs are very nice for people with small hands or for kids. I also find them more comfortable when handling wet stamps from soaking. The long ones are better when it comes to mounting and manipulating stamps for people use to handling stamps. Tongs can be dangerous, especially the pointed tip ones. If they fall off the table and happen to hit your foot in the right place, it is amazing how far into the flesh they will go. It is very easy to stab yourself in all kinds of places if you're not paying proper attention to what you are doing. Don't play with them when you are talking on the phone. If you are accident prone, spoon-tip tongs might be the way for you to go.

Tongs use to come gold plated. If you can get your hands on a pair of gold plated, spoon-tipped tongs, save them for using with wet stamps. The gold plating means you don't have to dry them all the time so they won't rust.

Last, the other members of your family will find all kinds of neat uses for your tongs, so you will either have to threaten them or buy extra pairs. They are great for removing splinters. They are great for handling small pieces of paper while doing page layouts. There are many other uses, like cleaning your fingernails. Aaaagh!!

Tongs are very useful in crafts, especially in handling beads, and dried and/or pressed flowers. For sewing - picking up small pieces of fabric and pins, pulling thread through needles, and pulling elastic, etc thru small openings. In cooking tongs are useful for separating thin crusts like pastry or philo, and adding small decorations to desserts. So beware!

Used Catalogs and Stamp Books

The local stamp shop use to be a great location for finding old specialty catalogs and stamp books. Unfortunately, there are not many local stamp shops left ;and those that are have nothing to offer in used books.

Elsewhere I have suggested some ideas for using old Scott catalogs, but foreign catalogs of bye gone years are just as useful for cutting up to make sorting charts and handy reference cards. In addition, old used catalogs published in foreign countries are a great source for providing information with which to expand your collection of a foreign country. Never pass up the chance to pick up an old Michel from any area of the world. Michel lists all kinds of stuff that Scott doesn't, all of which is eminently collectible. Let us say you have been collecting Austria for a number of years and have obtained just about everything that you can afford and can find. What to do? Get an old Michel (yes, it is in German and it is very hard to translate in places) and look up Austria. It is listed under ?sterreich (see you learned something already). In 1919, Austria issued a set of bicolors showing the parliament building (Scott 219-26). These stamps come with perforation varieties most of which Scott lists but Michel lists more. More importantly, many of these stamps can be found without the engravers name at the bottom of the stamp. Scott does not list these, but Michel does. In addition, they are common enough you can find them in your duplicates. This is just one example of how a foreign catalog can expand your collecting horizons. Don't worry about the foreign languages. Believe it or not, you can muddle through them to a reasonable extent . Some are harder than others, with French and Spanish on the easy end and Chinese and Hungarian on the harder side. If you are able to find old, used, specialty catalogs, you will find even more to collect. In the catalogs for Belgium, all the printed precancels are listed. The specialty catalogs for France and Colonies list all kinds of imperfs. If you are a real fill-the-hole collector, numeral cancels might be an interesting way to build your collections. You will find many foreign catalogs list the numerals cancels for the early issues for countries like France, Denmark, and some of the early German States. In addition, proofs, postal stationery, semi-officials, locals, booklets, first flights and all kinds of other neat stuff are listed. Of course, the prices are out of date; but you can still use the prices as a rarity guide.

Where can you find old catalogs and stamp books? The best place to find these books is in an auction. Often you buy a whole box of this stuff for a few bucks. What you don't need, sell at your stamp club or throw it away. In addition, if you are looking for something that is not too common or is popular (like a Sanabria airmail catalog which lists all kinds of airmail stamps that Scott doesn't), contact a literature dealer. Some of them are on the net. Visit them.

Did you know that there is a catalog for telegraph and telephone stamps? Can you recognize the cancels from the Congo riverboats? Do you know what the railroad post office cancels of French Africa look like? There are all kinds of neat little books out there. If you collect the US or Canada, there are some really fine specialty books around and many of them don't require a loan to purchase. When you come across something new, pick it up, look it over and buy it if it is cheap. It will come in handy.

Magnifying Glasses, Lenses and Loupes

Not everyone is born with great eyesight, and those who are begin to lose it when they turn forty. At one time or another, almost every collector needs some kind of lens with which to view the wonderful world of stamps. There are all kinds of lenses out there. They run the gamut from very expensive to dirt cheap. While you generally get what you pay for, that isn't necessarily so for the stamp collector. To start with, don't spend any money on a lens until you find one that really works for you and is comfortable to work with. For years I used a lens that I salvaged from an old super 8 movie camera. It was about 1.5 inches across, compact, with good optics and the price was right. It was free. A couple of years ago I left it somewhere and I really miss it. I probably have ten or so other lenses that I have picked up here or there or someone gave to me. Most of them I don't use because they are heavy, bulky, have too much distortion or they are too cheap. Others are too small or too powerful for everyday use.

If you do a lot of close up work with stamps such as in fly speck collecting (looking for minute printing differences between similar stamps), then there are a couple of lenses that I have or have seen that are for you. Edmund Scientific sells a neat little pocket microscope that has a measurement scale on the lens. Its drawback is that its field of vision is small and it is expensive. Recently I found something that looks like it will do well for this and other areas also. It is a four-inch lens mounted in a collapsible stand that allows light in from all five sides. You just place it over what you want to look at and the lens is at the correct distance. Since light gets in from all over the place, you don't need one of those light-and-lens combination things that never seem to work out. I don't know if I will find it convenient to use for everything, but it is great for comparing two to four stamps at one time. It was priced at $15 and was made in Hong Kong. It is called a foldable magnifier. There was no brand name.

For most collectors, a nice hand-held lens is best. Look for one that is not too heavy but has a glass lens. Look for quality. With many of the cheap ones, the distortion is high and the lenses will often fall out of their holders.

I have found that most of the lenses with a flashlight attached are a pain to use. In addition, the light source is often insufficient for the job at hand. The combination light and lens that clamps to the table and moves around where you put it seems awesome. However, I have found that the ones that cost what I am willing to spend are junk, and the ones that appear to work cost over $150. You can find the good ones or at least get a lead on a good one at your local drafting supply store. Make sure you can examine what you buy before you buy it. Don't buy them buy mail unless you enjoy protracted disagreements. The foldable magnifier mentioned above was found at a drafting supply store. It is bulky (about 6 inches high and square).

Be patient. Use what you can get cheap, and keep your eyes open for exactly what you want.

Stamp Lift

Among the many rare, and otherwise, pieces of equipment found in the hands of stamp collectors is the Stamp Lift. This device is made up of three pieces of plastic that form an airtight box with a perforated center tray and three pieces of felt that are soaked with water. Taken together when moistened, you have an airtight humidity chamber that allows you (if you have lots of patience) to carefully remove stamps from paper and at the same time retain most of the original gum. With this device you can remove unused stamps stuck on paper and turn them into almost mint. You can take stamps covered with hinge pieces and turn these also into almost mint. With a lot of practice, I have seen people make gum thins disappear (not paper thins) and the stamps appear almost mint. The drawbacks to this device are that lifted stamps are never really quite what they were when they were sold at the PO, and lifting stamps is very slow and time consuming. In addition, unless you are VERY careful, you can very easily ruin a lot of presentable stamps. In any event, the Stamp Lift is a good investment for almost any collector, except those in a hurry. I use my Stamp Lift to salvage stuck down mint stamps from collections that I buy. I also use it occasionally to remove hinge build up on old stamps. You MUST practice with this tool, and you cannot walk away and forget that there is something in it. Leaving stamps in the lift will cause the gum to run into the paper resulting in a terminal mess. It often takes almost an hour to loosen a stamp. In addition, you should pull only one stamp out of the tray at a time, and you need to work fast for the stamps dry a lot quicker than you would think. After you have separated the stamp from whatever, place it gum side down on the lid where there is no printing. It will pop free when it is dry.

Watermark Trays

Watermark trays are little, square, black glass or plastic trays used for watermarking. You will need one. Years ago they were made from black glass. Now they are plastic. The plastic ones are cheaper; but I worry that the solvents used for watermarking might leach something out of the plastic, so try to find a glass one if you can. The trays can also be used to soak one or two stamps in an emergency. Wipe your tray out before you use it, to remove dust and finger oil. You should also have an airtight bottle handy for pouring the unused portion of your fluid when you are done watermarking your stamps. This saves fluid and you from breathing anymore of it than is necessary.

Tongs

Using your fingers can easily stain or crease a stamp. One folded perforation or one missing perforation can, and usually does, ruin the value of a stamp. So use tongs. With very little practice you will find that sorting stamps with tongs is much faster than using your big fingers. If you are a beginner, start with a spoon-tip or spade-tip tong. The reason for this is that until one is practiced at using tongs it is very easy to put a hole in a stamp using the pointed-end tongs. The spoon-tip or spade-tip tongs are better in all respects for the novist collector and should be the only type considered by anyone but a seasoned collector especially when used to remove mounted stamps. After you have been using tongs for awhile, you may prefer to stick with the spoon or spade type or you may want to switch to the pointed-tip tongs. The advantage to the pointed-tip tongs is that it is much easier to sort stamps with them; but since they have a much smaller gripping surface, they are much better at pulling off perfs and putting holes in stamps when unmounting stamps or stripping off hinges. Unless you sort a lot of stamps, you may be happier with the spoon or spade tip. For moving wet stamps after soaking or using a stamp lift, the spoon or spade-tip tong is a superior tool.

There is no reason that a pair of stamp tongs can't last longer than you do, so buy quality. Get several good quality, German-made stamp tongs. The ones I use I have had for years. They were made for Showgard in Germany. Beware; there are a lot of cheap tongs around. At a local stamp show last year, not one dealer had decent tongs to sell. Buy one pair and try them out. If they work well, get more of the same kind. I have nine pairs of stamp tongs (tongs have little feet that cause them to wonder off seeking other employment). I would suggest the average collector needs at least three pair of tongs as they are very easy to misplace. When you buy tongs, always take them for a test drive. Make sure that the spring is not too weak. If it is, the tongs will become very aggravating and you will quit using them. Make sure that the spring is not too stiff. Tongs with very stiff springs will make your hands ache. Buy quality tongs that feel good to use. This is not an area to price shop.

Tongs come in different lengths, short and long, or at least they did when I bought my last pair. Short tongs are very nice for people with small hands or for kids. I also find them more comfortable when handling wet stamps from soaking. The long ones are better when it comes to mounting and manipulating stamps for people use to handling stamps. Tongs can be dangerous, especially the pointed tip ones. If they fall off the table and happen to hit your foot in the right place, it is amazing how far into the flesh they will go. It is very easy to stab yourself in all kinds of places if you're not paying proper attention to what you are doing. Don't play with them when you are talking on the phone. If you are accident prone, spoon-tip tongs might be the way for you to go.

Tongs use to come gold plated. If you can get your hands on a pair of gold plated, spoon-tipped tongs, save them for using with wet stamps. The gold plating means you don't have to dry them all the time so they won't rust.

Last, the other members of your family will find all kinds of neat uses for your tongs, so you will either have to threaten them or buy extra pairs. They are great for removing splinters. They are great for handling small pieces of paper while doing page layouts. There are many other uses, like cleaning your fingernails. Aaaagh!!

Tongs are very useful in crafts, especially in handling beads, and dried and/or pressed flowers. For sewing - picking up small pieces of fabric and pins, pulling thread through needles, and pulling elastic, etc thru small openings. In cooking tongs are useful for separating thin crusts like pastry or philo, and adding small decorations to desserts. So beware!

Used Catalogs and Stamp Books

The local stamp shop use to be a great location for finding old specialty catalogs and stamp books. Unfortunately, there are not many local stamp shops left ;and those that are have nothing to offer in used books.

Elsewhere I have suggested some ideas for using old Scott catalogs, but foreign catalogs of bye gone years are just as useful for cutting up to make sorting charts and handy reference cards. In addition, old used catalogs published in foreign countries are a great source for providing information with which to expand your collection of a foreign country. Never pass up the chance to pick up an old Michel from any area of the world. Michel lists all kinds of stuff that Scott doesn't, all of which is eminently collectible. Let us say you have been collecting Austria for a number of years and have obtained just about everything that you can afford and can find. What to do? Get an old Michel (yes, it is in German and it is very hard to translate in places) and look up Austria. It is listed under ?sterreich (see you learned something already). In 1919, Austria issued a set of bicolors showing the parliament building (Scott 219-26). These stamps come with perforation varieties most of which Scott lists but Michel lists more. More importantly, many of these stamps can be found without the engravers name at the bottom of the stamp. Scott does not list these, but Michel does. In addition, they are common enough you can find them in your duplicates. This is just one example of how a foreign catalog can expand your collecting horizons. Don't worry about the foreign languages. Believe it or not, you can muddle through them to a reasonable extent . Some are harder than others, with French and Spanish on the easy end and Chinese and Hungarian on the harder side. If you are able to find old, used, specialty catalogs, you will find even more to collect. In the catalogs for Belgium, all the printed precancels are listed. The specialty catalogs for France and Colonies list all kinds of imperfs. If you are a real fill-the-hole collector, numeral cancels might be an interesting way to build your collections. You will find many foreign catalogs list the numerals cancels for the early issues for countries like France, Denmark, and some of the early German States. In addition, proofs, postal stationery, semi-officials, locals, booklets, first flights and all kinds of other neat stuff are listed. Of course, the prices are out of date; but you can still use the prices as a rarity guide.

Where can you find old catalogs and stamp books? The best place to find these books is in an auction. Often you buy a whole box of this stuff for a few bucks. What you don't need, sell at your stamp club or throw it away. In addition, if you are looking for something that is not too common or is popular (like a Sanabria airmail catalog which lists all kinds of airmail stamps that Scott doesn't), contact a literature dealer. Some of them are on the net. Visit them.

Did you know that there is a catalog for telegraph and telephone stamps? Can you recognize the cancels from the Congo riverboats? Do you know what the railroad post office cancels of French Africa look like? There are all kinds of neat little books out there. If you collect the US or Canada, there are some really fine specialty books around and many of them don't require a loan to purchase. When you come across something new, pick it up, look it over and buy it if it is cheap. It will come in handy.

Magnifying Glasses, Lenses and Loupes

Not everyone is born with great eyesight, and those who are begin to lose it when they turn forty. At one time or another, almost every collector needs some kind of lens with which to view the wonderful world of stamps. There are all kinds of lenses out there. They run the gamut from very expensive to dirt cheap. While you generally get what you pay for, that isn't necessarily so for the stamp collector. To start with, don't spend any money on a lens until you find one that really works for you and is comfortable to work with. For years I used a lens that I salvaged from an old super 8 movie camera. It was about 1.5 inches across, compact, with good optics and the price was right. It was free. A couple of years ago I left it somewhere and I really miss it. I probably have ten or so other lenses that I have picked up here or there or someone gave to me. Most of them I don't use because they are heavy, bulky, have too much distortion or they are too cheap. Others are too small or too powerful for everyday use.

If you do a lot of close up work with stamps such as in fly speck collecting (looking for minute printing differences between similar stamps), then there are a couple of lenses that I have or have seen that are for you. Edmund Scientific sells a neat little pocket microscope that has a measurement scale on the lens. Its drawback is that its field of vision is small and it is expensive. Recently I found something that looks like it will do well for this and other areas also. It is a four-inch lens mounted in a collapsible stand that allows light in from all five sides. You just place it over what you want to look at and the lens is at the correct distance. Since light gets in from all over the place, you don't need one of those light-and-lens combination things that never seem to work out. I don't know if I will find it convenient to use for everything, but it is great for comparing two to four stamps at one time. It was priced at $15 and was made in Hong Kong. It is called a foldable magnifier. There was no brand name.

For most collectors, a nice hand-held lens is best. Look for one that is not too heavy but has a glass lens. Look for quality. With many of the cheap ones, the distortion is high and the lenses will often fall out of their holders.

I have found that most of the lenses with a flashlight attached are a pain to use. In addition, the light source is often insufficient for the job at hand. The combination light and lens that clamps to the table and moves around where you put it seems awesome. However, I have found that the ones that cost what I am willing to spend are junk, and the ones that appear to work cost over $150. You can find the good ones or at least get a lead on a good one at your local drafting supply store. Make sure you can examine what you buy before you buy it. Don't buy them buy mail unless you enjoy protracted disagreements. The foldable magnifier mentioned above was found at a drafting supply store. It is bulky (about 6 inches high and square).

Be patient. Use what you can get cheap, and keep your eyes open for exactly what you want.