Are These Precancels?

Would you say these are all precancels?

The first one I'm not so sure about. Whether it is or isn't, I cannot seem to come up with the correct city in N.J. being referenced with the partial cancellation ... any ideas?

I believe the middle pair is simply an inverted local precancel.

I am assuming the one on the far right is a Philadelphia precancel, although it is quite off-center from where it should be to the point where the precancel name is shown twice on the stamp.

Your first stamp looks more like a box cancel to me, but I'm no expert. Can't match up the city, though.

Other than precancels on coil stamps, there are very few types that have vertical lines in them. Almost all of those are box cancels. The town name is probably Singac, NJ - I often look at this gazetteer site to help solve problems like that. (Note that Singac is now a part of the township of Little Falls.)

http://www.fallingrain.com/world/index.html



Local in the sense that it isn't a Bureau, yes. But it's actually a federally contracted precancel device in a style used by numerous different towns, so it doesn't get the "L" prefix to the style number (PSS calls that a "Contract Local" device). This one gets style # 632. The Hoover catalogue says the invert isn't worth any more than normal.



If you imagine that same spacing over a sheet of stamps, there isn't a way to have the same precancel appear on all the stamps. The stamp from the row immediately below your copy would have the city name only once on the stamp - precancels don't generally work that way, they're supposed to have the same design on every stamp (although you can find precancel devices intended for small definitives that were used on larger stamps, like a commemorative, so those don't line up properly).

However, it's still possible that it could have been a double impression of a plate or a handstamp. So, we still need to check all of the style types. Fortunately, most of them rule themselves out because the vast majority use only capital letters. As a quick estimate, it looks like the spacing between lines is around 9 to 10 mm and the length of the city name is about 20 mm. That should rule out type 230, which has a very similar font but a 12 mm spacing.

Type L-13 (Hoover type 27) is a handstamp with a 20 mm city name and with lines 10 mm apart, in a font that looks just like the one shown on your stamp. However, Hoover does not list that precancel on the 5c Roosevelt.

Type L-57 (Hoover type 40) is another handstamp, this time with a 21 mm city name and with lines 9.5 - 10 mm apart. However, that one doesn't look correct to me - the letters are too large, there's not enough space between the city and state names, and the period after "Pa" doesn't line up in the correct place under the "e" of Philadelphia. But it does show up in the Hoover catalogue on a 5c Roosevelt (the perf. 11 x 10 1/2 variety).

And if we go back and look at that electrotype with the 12 mm spacing between lines (type 230), that one does show up in Hoover a on the 5c Roosevelt (perf. 11 x 11), but Hoover doesn't list the double imprint variety, whereas it does for many other values in the series.

Confusing! I would say it's type L-13 and it is missing from the Hoover catalogue in error. However, an exact measurement of the town name length and the spacing between lines is necessary to say for sure.

Ryan

The first one is from a box cxl, the Bridgeton, NJ is Type 632 +.25., Philadelphia is an L13.

Way to go, Ryan!

First, a big 'thank you' to you both for taking the time to explain the type of cancellations on these three items. (I never knew there was so much to learn on the details of such stamps.)

Anyway, let me also state that both of the 5c Roosevelt stamps are perf 11 x 10.5, so they would be Scott #637.

As suggested, since the first #637 would not be a precancel but simply a box cancel, and you have narrowed down the town to Singac, NJ, then the stamp is probably collectable in its own right, since it appears that the post office in that town closed as far back as 1937, so it's an example of a cancellation from a DPO (dead post office.)

As it was stated that a box precancel would be confined to coil stamps, then it would be reasonable to assume that this sheet stamp would be a box cancel, too, and not a precancel ... Right?:



The middle example was probably the easiest to explain, as you have both identified it as a #632 style precancel.

If it's of any additional help, I found a couple of more similar precancels to the final example of the Roosevelt (Scott #637) since my last post (which may help to more accurately define this variety as a precancel type L-13-HS):



Thanks again. I guess I'm slowly learning some of the details of these varieties.

The Lynn, MA is a precancel local L-3, it may be the only box precancel that you would fine that is not meant only for coils.

Wow. This certainly can get confusing.

Given the info. previously provided that the Lynn, MA cancel would be one of the only box cancels not meant for coils, what would this Framinghma, MA cancel be?



Is this example NOT a precancel but merely a box cancel?

Framingham, Mass. is a box cancel. Good Job.