Greetings to all!
I have a general question. Are there collectors here who like Stamps on Paper? I am not talking about covers; rather stamps that are on paper… close-clipped from envelopes. Thanks for your feedback.
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Hello Captain!
I can tell you from experience that the better part of collectors are those who collect on paper, carefully cut from envelopes. In fact, there are probably more of those than the type who collect FDC’s, as the cost can be quite significant; especially for a beginning collector. For many years, when I collected in my younger days, it was desired to have the postmark along with the stamp. In particularly, if the cancellation stamp was clear and cleanly applied to the stamp itself.
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Thanks for the reply. I recently won a large auction lot of stamps. Besides the usual off-paper quantities, there was a large portion of stamps on paper. Most have been clipped from envelopes, but a good number have been cut from postcards …ugh.
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Usually, I put some effort to find them because then I can peel them perfercly by myself.
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Hi, Yes, many collectors will love stamps on paper. As a Philatelist we call a stamp on part of its original envelope or package as being " On piece " as distinct from being " On cover" which is on the compete envelope. If the envelope has the stamp intact and has the original contents as well it is known as an “entire”. If you have a lot of stamps on piece, ie with the envelope remnant that would be known as " Kiloware" in bulk. If stamps are cut from the envelope its good to keep it tidy and leave at least a 1mm margin. They should not be too close clipped as many times people nick across the perforations. Many people are interested in Postmarks and if its a good one, easily legible or with a printed slogan or anything else of note you may want to cut around and keep that as well.
If a stamp is " on piece" with an interesting Postmark I will often keep it that way and mount it appropriately in my collection. Some countries have very fine Postmarks as a regularity, Monaco springs to mind. On older examples you will find postmarks of places that no longer have Post Offices etc which is interesting for a Postal historian. As digitisation continues at a rate of knots the stamps will increasingly have bar codes and QR codes that give all the information on where and when the stamp was bought and its journey through the Post which will negate forgeries and Postmarks will become redundant, think of the ink saving ! ( Germany already has these stamps issued but still uses violet coloured Postmarks for the time being ).
Hope that’s useful, Regards D 
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Yes, I save stamps and their postmarks, if possible. Prefer them on paper (from envelopes) rather than on postcard stock. Seems a shame to cut up a postcard…
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The feeling of soaking them, cleaning them up, drying them etc is pretty nice, at least for me! If you are interested for a swap or anything, I’d love to get some!
Yes, "soaking off " is very therapeutic ! Even if it covers the entire kitchen in drying stamps. If you’d like me to send you some on paper ( easily soaked non self-adhesive ! ) Pm me your address and I’ll pop you some over. Don’t need anything for them. Happy to give you hours of happiness.
Best Wishes, D
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Whenever I offer them here on the forum, I get a lot of requests for my on-paper used stamps. SO it definitely seems people are interested in them.
I love soaking stamps as others have mentioned. I find it so meditative… On the other hand, removing self adhesive ones with solvent is a total pain. If I buy used self-adhesive ones for craft I always make sure they are already off paper.
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@jaenelle …thanks for that feedback. It gives me some ideas.
@Ceres1849 …good observations. I regularly bid on stamp auctions. One lot I recently won had a large number of stamps on paper. There were two lots of strictly stamps mixtures (kiloware) that got good prices. I find pictorial postmarks very interesting, I have hundreds of postcards from France from the 1990s that have these. While I was drying my laundry (LOL!), I was browsing through some of these stamps. I noticed two stamps on piece from “Venda.” Before seeing this, the only time I saw stamps from the former South Africa “homelands” they were usually unused, mint - never postally used. Lastly, the USPS is highly automated now. It’s very rare to find a cancellation that isn’t a bar code.
@Aerobear…I agree…I never like to see a postcard butchered.
Yes , I like it too . My daughter and I bought them at the flea market usually
Yes, Venda isn’t that common in Kiloware, I guess the Homelands use mobiles most of the time and don’t write a lot of letters and yes again you’ll find piles of the Homelands Mint not hinged as they printed them like wallpaper. You can find some good stuff though if you’re lucky, a few years ago I bought a big box of Kiloware and in amongst it was a lot of Nouvelle-Calédonie on piece with great Postmarks all from the same sender and that is a really uncommon country to find. Regards D
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I used to buy used stamps on paper in bulk.
Recently tried to find somewhere in the Netherlands for recent issues, as my sister-in-law from there passed away. It would be easier with PayPal, but the main problem is the sites are not in English.