Drying Books and Alternatives

In fact and indeed!  Made by SAFE - image nabbed from the German Amazon site.  But lots of money, thus I don't own one ... you see them for sale over on our side of the Atlantic for around US $500 for units with our electrics in them, this European model is €210 from amazon.de .



Ryan

Before the advent of self-adhesives I would soak incoming stamps on incoming mail not worth keeping for the cover aspect, then dry them in a junk store copy of the classic book "Great Expectations"

I use drying books and no complaints.

thestampforum.boards.net/thread/6867/drying-books-alternatives

My drying book is the oldest piece of equipment I have, over 20 years old. 
Super.
It will outlive me, honest.

Londonbus1

I use a very thick sketchbook to dry the stamps after using a towel to remove excessive water. Works nicely for me. If things gets stuck, I just have to bend the page a bit.

Some images to help the new generations who don't know how to use a rotary phone.

Telephone directory.
In our case, Yellow pages.





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Baking parchmemt paper also known as grease proof paper.






And last but not least, an authentic cotton kitchen towel.

Each issue of stamps is usually produced with a certain type of paper that could be defined as light, medium or heavy paper, the value cards of the stamps, banknotes and more are produced with various weights.
Once the stamp has been washed and placed on a cotton fabric it is almost able to dry by itself in the air. Our heavy book and baking paper are used mostly to iron and dry the last residual moisture.

The transfer of chemical substances from paper to postage stamp would be remarkable if the postage stamp and the paper were heated hot, in cold conditions the release of probable substances is minimal or zero, also considering that the wrappers where food is placed should not release by law chemical residue. .

Thanks for your response, Ryan .  I have actually seen parchment paper before used in baking, but somehow I had not connected it from its proper baking use with what Ludovico (rex ) was describing.... not sure why!  My apologies to all for posting incorrect info.

I have corrected my earlier post so as not to confuse anyone.  I don't know how well parchment paper works for drying stamps after soaking, but I can attest that waxed paper works very well, and I have never noticed any issues with leaving some sort of residue on the stamps.  I have also not noticed any appreciable difference in how long it takes for them to dry.

But as I mentioned, I use paper towels to remove the excess water first, so the stamps are only damp by the time I press them between the blotter and the waxed paper.  I started blotting the excess water prior to placing on the blotter paper because when I didn't do that, I ended up with water stains on the blotter paper, and it also became warped, similar to what Peter (brightonpete ) described with his drying book.

After wrecking a couple of pieces of blotter paper that way, I changed to my current process, and I haven't had any problems since then.  

I soaked a small group of stamps, including some GB QV penny reds that stuck themselves quite well to the paper towel-  I  tried a culinary parchment paper (thank you rex for mentioning parchment)  and  also as a 'test group" half using the old paper towel method. I am anxious to see how well parchment works (this test is parchment on both sides)

I report back in a day or two!

I'm not sure if it was a full hour, but they were left on/between and then open with towel

This biggest issue initially was the parchment comes in cut sheets that are rolled and getting it to lay flat required some well placed paper weights.  I'm hoping after a time or two of being 'pressed" they will lay flat

I'm really enjoying this thread... diversity and parallels in the same essentially universal process, eh?

So, my 2 cents worth:

Lay 'em out on terry cloth washcloths (that can be purchase at Walmart at a pack of 18 for $4) just long enough to absorb the bulk of the water and air dry slightly (maybe 10 minutes).

Move them to 110 lb cardstock pages - 8 x 11s that I fold in half to 8 x 5.5, putting the stamps in the middle (250 sheets for about $20? at Staples... might have gone up, I haven't needed to purchase more in quite some time).

Slide the loaded cardstocks between the pages (every 30 or so) of any old, large book I don't care about (I get free textbooks every now and then as a teacher - distributors trying to get me to change what I use in class, but large used books are exceptionally cheap at any public library's old stock sales, often 50 cents a copy).

Stack the books, throw an old dumbbell on top, and let 'em sit overnight.

I do have a drying book (same one I've had for years, don't remember its cost but I've seen similar at shows for 12ish bucks), and I use it for the odd stamp that adhered to the cardstock in the morning (just re-soak, trash the now cut-up cardstock, and use the drying book), or stamps that quite obviously still have enough glue to do that.

But this whole thread is also dismaying me; it's getting harder and harder to walk by my banker's box of on-paper (now 3/4 full!) without doing anything about it!  ;-)

Andy