How to soak stamps
You will need: two bowls of water, stamp tongs, newspaper and copier paper.

Use bowls that you will not use for food at a later date.

Pour some water into both bowls. Scatter stamps onto the water of one bowl, and push the stamps down with the tongs. Stir the water with the tongs so every stamp gets soaked, not shielded from water by the other stamps. Let them soak while you sort other stamps.

Gummed stamps soak off more easily than some self-adhesive USA stamps. Remove the stamps that are off paper, with stamp tongs. Brush each stamp against the edge of the bowl to let a few drops of water drain back into the bowl. Then drop the stamp into the second bowl.

Some stamps will still be holding onto their papers. If you peel the paper away easily, remember that some gum may still be on the stamp, so let it swim to wash off the gum.

Be very gentle if you peel paper off the back of a stamp, as you can tear the stamp that way, creating a thin spot. When that happens, discard the stamp, even if the thinned paper is still holding onto the stamp.

In the process of soaking and sorting stamps, discard any that are torn, stained, creased or thinned. Do not try to sell or trade these. (This applies to common stamps. Some valuable stamps will still be worth saving even if they are damaged.)

Upon removing stamps from the second bowl, brush them against the edge of the bowl to remove excess water. Place the stamps face-down on clean copier paper. (Buy the cheapest at an office supply warehouse.) Cover these with another sheet. Put this sandwich on newspaper and fold the newspaper over the sandwich. Each sandwich should be in a separate fold of newspaper because the newspaper will absorb water. Stack the folds of newspaper, each with a stamp sandwich, and weigh down with a big, heavy book. Let stand overnight.

Stamp water is dirty water. Pour it into the toilet. Raise the toilet seat first so you don’t pour dirty water onto the toilet seat.

When opening the sandwiches, some stamps will stick to the copier paper. Tear off that scrap of copier paper and soak the stamp off again.

If a stamp seems to want to peel off the copier paper, but then leaves part of the ink (from the front of the stamp) on the copier paper, discard the stamp.

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