Soaking with hot water

What sort of adverse effect would hot water have as opposed to warm water? I don't mean scalding boiling water but dishwater hot. Or is the problem limited to old stamps only? I've tried it on a few of the newer self sticks and it seems to work just fine.

I use very hot water on early Germany and early Canada with excellent results but watch out for stamps that are printed with water-soluble ink (not all catalogs tell you that which is a shame). Also, don't use very hot water if you are soaking off coloured paper or you are likely to wind up with a bowl of pink / yellow / whatever stamps. Particularly bad are stamps stuck to the type of airmail envelope with red and blue stripes round the outside.

Thanx, I've found stamps and just about anything red do not like each other<G>, be it cancels or envelopes. I read somewhere one should use cold water for that and to place the stamp face down to minimize the water soaking into the colored envelope.

A kilo of stamps in a zip-up laundry bag in the washing machine with a hot/warm setting produced results that did not inspire confidence. Darn, now you've gotten me thinking of the dishwasher ..... Hmmm! Veeery interethting! lol

Seriously though, many years ago when I first started buying kilos on paper from our local Bible House I tried hot water on a lot to get the job over and done quickly - just hot water straight from the tap - and most of the stamps and envelope pieces disintegrated. I have tried hot water recently on mint Canadian self-sticks and they came off without damage leaving the gum sticky and stretchy on the paper.