I'm trying to add some additional key/value pairs to an NSMutableDictionary, using: Tag *tag1 = [results1 objectAtIndex:0]; [resultsDict setObject:[tag1 retrieveTextUpToDepth:1] forKey:@"image_url"]; Tag *tag2 = [results2 objectAtIndex:0]; [resultsDict setValue:[tag2 retrieveTextUpToDepth:1] forKey:@"majority"]; This adds the k/v pairs with no problem, except when I come to retrieve them, some of the values have been wrapped with double quotes: po extendedDataDictionary: "image_url" = "/images/mpsL/11727.jpeg"; majority = 3460; Both keys and values are NSStrings, with no quotes - so I'm stumped as to where they're appearing from. Is there any way of preventing this? Or am I going to have to live with it and try to strip off the quotes once I've retrieved the value? Thanks...