The whole process made me appreciate how much information is packed into something so small. A torn postmark and a watermark you can only see against light told me more about where that letter had traveled than I expected from a box that cost less than lunch.

I still have about thirty pieces I haven't identified yet, mostly because the cancellation marks are too faded to read clearly. Planning to look at them under a lamp this week before deciding whether they're worth mounting or just filing away as space fillers.

Anyone else find that estate sale mixed lots end up being more rewarding than buying sets that are already sorted and priced? There's something about not knowing what you're going to find in a random handful that makes the sorting part feel less like work and more like actual discovery.

Part of this question is rhetorical, I'm pretty sure I taped 6 and 7 to preserve them!

I know that I did not use any sort of solvent to dissolve glue on self adhesive stamps and yet I have some that don't have paper attached. I have a vague memory of steaming them in the top of a kettle. Is it possible I managed to wrangle the gum off by brute force after it was heated? You can see in #4 that there is still paper in the center but the edges are clean (must have given up). The backs of all of these (self adhesive and not) feel rough.

Some that you can't see feel extremely thin. Is it possible that I was separating the different layers of paper? Envelope-glue-paper-(picture) and I just have the part in parentheses?

In some senses, I know it doesn't matter, keep what I want and toss what I don't (while learning from my childhood mistakes). I am curious though if there is any salvaging. If I soaked them again would that help those with the rough back or is that permanent damage? I'm guessing there was a lot of impatience and pulling things off instead of waiting for them to float off.