Should I remove the gum from low value stamps?

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I collect stamps, not gum.

If a stamp is about to become toast because of gum, off to the soaker it goes. I make sure that certain "bleeders" are not put in the water with them so that they can ruin them.

Case in point, those nasty wasty Dutch Indies faders. Boy, they'll just fade away upon soaking. Although I have aa slight clue as to which ones will do this, I do not have a definitive list.

Some stamps, like Austrian revenues, were actually printed on the gummed side! These have to be collected on piece.

As far as your cancelled items go, they are CTO. No danger there, except if sold to an unwitting collector as postal used down the road. Most of us can get a good hint about it being CTO, but not everyone is in the know.

Even mint issues with huge remnants, gunk and all that will make a nicer, cleaner stamp if soaked.

The key here is positive management of the goods. One must take care that the ink won't run, speckle, crack, etc... I face that all of the time with photo and litho printed stamps.

There are no hard and fast "rules" as to what you can do with your stamps. They're YOUR stamps!

As mentioned, I'll take a nice clean stamp anyday over a a nasty wasty gunky gooey looking piece of poop before it was soaked.