Large Stamp Collection, Advice Needed, Musty,Mildew Smell

Welcome to Stamp Bears, catpal!

It's great to see you are acquiring stamps!

Unfortunately, I have some not-so-good news. If you can smell the musty odor, it's sure to be contaminated with mildew. Mildew can spread like wildfire through a stamps collection. Most normal household methods to kill mildew will damage your stamps. The "archival" chemical solutions are quite expensive, and you pretty much have to do it on a stamp by stamp basis (no tossing the entire book into a big vat).

If you want to try to salvage stamps from the album, here are a few notes:

-- remove the stamps you want immediately from the album/stockbooks/glassines... (or whatever was originally holding them) and put them in sealable/ziploc bags to isolate them
-- don't bother trying to save the album/stockbook/glassines..., they should be discarded as soon as possible to avoid spreading the mildew (mint US stamps from 1970s onwards are notorious for being susceptible to catching mildew growth)
-- the odor normally is primarily coming from the non-stamp stuff; some will be coming from the stamps but only a small part because they comprise a smaller percentage of the total mass of the collection
-- get rid of the initial annoying smell first by putting the stamps loosely in sealable plastic bins and tossing in a packet of odor absorber (or you can put baking soda in a small open tray and put in the plastic bin). Keep the stamps/absorbent in the closed plastic bins for about 2-4 weeks (amount of time will depend on how many stamps you put in the bins). You can open up the bins once or twice each week and move the stamps around (e.g., flip them over, shift them... so different parts of the stamps can desorb odor).

After that, pick the stamps you want and you can do one of the following:

-- see the thread Mold/Mildew on Stamps (it's not a topical thread)
-- refer to the book "The Dealer's Guide to Chemical Restoration of Postage Stamps"

Whatever chemical method you employ, in most cases the cleaning method can be detected using proper equipment -- so you should never hide the fact that you attempted to clean the stamp.

Most stamp/supply dealers don't like to sell the book, but it is available online. I also have the book (only for reference to study how to detect restored stamps) even though it is not in my list posted in the Philatelic Library thread. The method is tedious and involves a certain amount of "cooking". If you get to that point, PM me and I can scan the relevant pages for you (assuming I can find the book).

You should also invest in a good dual wavelength filtered UV lamp (not the portable battery-operated philatelic kind sold by supply dealers, they are too wimpy to effectively detect hidden mildew). You should get the larger bulky hand-held plug-in ones often used by rock/mineral collectors and research scientists. It will be an investment (expect to spend $50-$100 for the lamp). A good UV lamp will help you spot small mildew growth that often escapes the unaided eye.

Best wishes... but I think you may be better off purchasing/working on another collection and just putting that last purchase in a large plastic bin with lots of opened baking soda boxes for several months. It's really a lot more fun to be able to work on sorting stamps rather than slave for several weeks trying to salvage a heavily contaminated collection. JMHO.

Hope that helps and doesn't discourage you too much.

khj, Thank you very much for the ideas, I will try them out. There are thousands of stamps, I sure would like to save them. kind regards!