I purchase what I call rescue collections. These are typically a child’s collection or a collection from someone who didn't know about, couldn't afford or just didn't care about hinges. Stamps are often taped, glued or pasted to pages. These rescue stamps provide me with hours of amusement and occasionally a decent stamp or two. One of my recent experiments has been with stamps stained by 3M or Scotch tape. I have accumulated a couple dozen higher value stamps in this condition that I would like to clean. Using some cheap stamps I found bleach ruins a stamp even if used much diluted, the stamp paper yellows and the stains reappear in a few months. Peroxide whitens the paper but doesn't remove the stain. I have tried several cleaning solvents without success. Does anyone have a solution or am I the only nut in the club trying to restore stamps? If I remove only the stains is the stamps value altered negatively?
