A VERSATILE ANALYTICAL METHOD OF IDENTIFYING ADHESIVE ON STAMPS BY SPECULAR-REFLECTANCE FOURIER-TRANSFORM INFRARED-SPECTROSCOPY

A specular-reflectance FT-IR spectroscopic technique has been applied to analyze the adhesives on stamps. The results show that it is better than the reported diffuse-reflectance technique, particularly in the suitability of sample size. The spectra of some used and unused stamps from several different countries were obtained; some exhibited apparent differences and some looked basically identical. The spectra of glues on the edge papers of stamps show the promising potential applications of this technique for other adhesive analysis of documents and books.