How to Soak Self-Adhesive Postage Stamps Off Paper

Trim all but a small paper border away from the stamps. Sort through them and set aside any stamps on colored paper, with red or purple cancellations and dark-colored or unusual-looking stamps to be soaked individually later on. This helps reduce the risk of them staining other stamps or becoming stained themselves during the soaking process.

Fill the shallow, wide bowl with several inches of lukewarm tap water. Place the trimmed stamps facedown in the bowl. Make sure you limit the number of stamps you put in the water so that they don't overlap.

Wait until the stamps start to separate from their paper backing. This may happen within a few minutes, or it may take up to an hour for some self-adhesive stamps. You can agitate the water every few minutes to help encourage the stamps to separate, and if they show signs of coming off the paper you can help them along by carefully pulling the paper backing away from the stamp.

Use stamp tongs to extract the self-adhesive stamps from the water as they separate from their paper backings. Rinse the back of the stamp in cool water to remove any remaining adhesive, then place the stamps face up in a stamp drying book or on white paper until they are completely dry.

Set aside any stamps that haven't separated from their backing after at least a full hour of soaking. Empty out the lukewarm water and replace with hot water. Using the stamp tongs, soak each stamp individually in the hot water from a few seconds up to a minute, then attempt to carefully separate the backing from the stamp. This is the port of last resort for soaking self-adhesive stamps off paper; if this doesn't work, the only option guaranteed not to damage the stamp is simply trimming away as much of the paper backing away as possible and then displaying the stamp as is.