US : Precancels.

Let me see what I have, are you interested in everything or certain issues or states?
Theron.

Rod, I have to ask, what is there about US precancels that would prompt you to embark on what I would consider a never-ending quest?
Theron.

Hopefully the "next guy" will have the same passion for collecting as you do.

I enjoy collecting American precancels, and I think it stems from a long-standing interest in geography.  I was the type of kid that always wanted to look at a map while we were driving, I received a globe for my 6th birthday (which I still own), a road atlas for my 8th birthday, etc.  Especially now in the days of the internet with easy access to information, it's fun to look up towns about which you know absolutely zero.  A while back I was looking through some precancels and I often came across some from Piqua, OH.  I didn't know Thing #1 about Piqua, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and lo and behold, it's the hometown of the Mills Brothers (boy, I like the Mills Brothers)!  Bill Lear too, the guy who founded Lear Jet.  It was the first town in the US to have its own atomic power plant.  They used to hold an underwear festival.  There's almost always interesting stuff to find out about these place names I see on the precancels.



Collecting precancels is entirely different than collecting "regular" stamps.  Finding the stamps is really difficult to do relative to their price level.  Let's say you want a regular US stamp that's valued at $150-$250, something like #C3 never hinged (the Inverted Jenny except the plane isn't inverted).  Go on eBay, a quick search and there are dozens of them to choose from, singles, margin copies, blocks of 4, blocks of 12, whatever.  All you need to do is click your mouse a couple of times and make a purchase, you can find and buy the stamp in less than 10 minutes and most likely for quite a bit less than the catalogue value.  If you want a precancel that is valued at $250, you might wait 10 years and never see a copy for sale even if you're willing to pay $1000 for it.  There's much more "finding" time required when you're collecting precancels.

People have found all kinds of ways of collecting precancels.  You might collect only one state, you might collect only the Bureaus (nice clean overprints, and a limited number of possibilities), or maybe only towns with 3 letters in the name, or towns that no longer have a post office, or every possible precancel on the 13 cent apple green Washington-Franklin stamp, etc etc etc.  I don't take it very seriously, I still have fun with bulk purchases and just seeing what's there.  I don't target particular stamps although it's possible I will eventually get there.  But it's loads of fun.



Ryan

The Mills Brothers, I remember them well, and still enjoy listening to them today.

Theron.

Precancels:

I'd like to thank Steve and Jeff and James? for my new additions,
received 63 new precancels, looks like only 5 duplicates, which shows what a hopeless collection I have.

Shall have to print 12 new pages to accomodate 1 new stamp each page

Thanks a bunch guys.

Thanks Jerry,
(If my life wasn't complicated already    )

That may be a bridge too far.
I'll continue with Steiner for the time being, but keep this in mind,
I liked the free Excel viewer, which I'll download early in the morning (75Mb)

$23 is fairly cool for shipping, I often pay up to $40 if I buy a collection, freight is expensive these days, so budgeting is a must.
I don't go anywhere near an auction site, if I am in "save" mode, too tempting.

Appreciate that link,  very comprehensive indeed. 42,000  (gulp)

Theron, received your Pre cancels this afternoon.
Many, many thanks.
A nice selection, will take some sorting.

Nice Inverted Jennifer on the cover, ( Cover : A Jan 1st 1965 U550 5c bright purple Eagle)  
Salutations.

Progress in "The never Ending Quest" is plodding along.
I am such a novice in this discipline,  Can anyone advise what the numbers following the Sc Cat # means please?   4.9  6.2 etc & etc.

PS: The 11c "caboose" is not listed in Sc, why do I find it on Mr. Steiner's page ?

Those numbers are the values, 6.2 cents, 10.1 cents, etc.
The caboose is Scott # 1905, issued Feb 3, 1984

With due respect, that can't be correct, I would have picked that up.

For instance, the buckboard 4.9c non profit, has 2124 (sc cat) and 4.4  what is 4.4?

Scott generally only lists the Bureau precancels if they are somehow different from the other listings.  The most common usage of this is with untagged stamps - many untagged stamps are only available as Bureau precancels and are therefore mentioned in Scott.  There's the occasional variety where the precancels were available to the general public, Christmas stamps from the late '60s.  And once in a long while there's something like #596, exceedingly rare stuff (who knows why the precancel gets a price listing here, other than to perhaps set a price difference between a "proper" cancel and a precancel on this stamp).  If the only thing notable about the precancel is the mere fact that a precancel exists, then Scott ignores them and it's up to the PSS catalogues to deal with the literal millions of varieties there.

Ryan