El Salvador and Peru

[AussieTimmeh]

Hi all,

I'm going through my collection inherited from my dad. While there is very little from South America, what is in there looks nice, but I am assuming ultimately worth very little as usual of course. I don't collect it and will look at moving it on, but I thought I'd share to hopefully learn a little about them and why a boy in Australia might end up with them 50 years ago or so. He's hinged them on paper unfortunately - I am not a fan of hinges myself and I am not sure whether to leave them on or soak them off.

Peru


El Salvador








Thanks for looking!

[Admin Bear]

I (personally) like hinges... but not a fan of the notebook.. i would use a very sharp hobby knife (exacto) and cut the hinge really close to the page and then soak off the remaining bit of hinge.. the ink on that paper will likely bleep out and alter the color of those beautiful stamps..

as to how any one in AU got them my bet would be from buying a kiloware mix at a local hobby shop.

hope this helps a little.

[darkormex]

Before you soak anything, however, it is important to realize that if you are soaking stamps that are unused and still have remaining gum you are decreasing the value of the stamps. There really is no need to soak previously hinged stamps unless they are used.

[Butterfly]

I can't speak for the El Salvador stamps, but I do collect Peru.

The first stamp was issued three times, in 1938, 1945 and 1949 and all versions are common with minimal value so it would be a good candidate for experimenting. I would rip it off the page and see how well the hinge pulls away from the paper. If it pulls away fairly easily, then quite likely it could also be pulled away from the stamp without damage. There is a bit of an art to pulling hinges off of stamps. Pull slowly and keep the stamp flat while curling back the hinge where it is in contact with the stamp. Certain hinges, commonly called in the vernacular "hinges of steel", of course are best left on the stamp, or soaked off.

The second stamp is an 1886 reissue of an 1866 stamp. Scott #111 catalog value is about 60 cents mint and 35 cents used.

Hope this helps.

[AussieTimmeh]

Ok great, thanks all for your excellent replies that help me learn. These stamps are well outside my area of interest but I do think they look nice, and I would want to move them onto someone who appreciates them, so I might just leave them hinged on the paper and let the new owner decide what they want to do with them. Appreciate the advice - I've never dealt with hinges before.

[Deleted]

Lovely vibrant colours, nice stamps, thank you for sharing them.