I Love Small Town Precancels

I think they are so unique and tell of when place out there had post offices. I'm sure many of the cancels no longer exist for those towns. truely a time gone by.

I previously posted a precancel from Hornbrook, California. I also just went through some precancels and found some from Bemos Point and Sharon Springs, NY, as well as one from Clifton Heights, PA. I even found one from a DPO at Cornwells Heights, PA, a town where a post office no longer exists (DPO = discontinued post office).

I agree, it's a an interesting field to collect.

For your small towns do you collect by state or some other way? I also pick up precancels for IL, towns that have "Lincoln" in the name, and ones found along historic Route 66.

I collect by State primarily. I never pursued this until a friend gave me boxes of precancels repreesentative of about every State in the Union. I have three binders full of mounted pages with precancels by state, and another couple of shoeboxes full of them with duplicates galore. There must be thousands (perhaps even 10,000+) stamps in all.

I have created a very simple spreadsheet identifying the towns I have (by State) and have thus far come up with 796 different cities/towns, although I know that's only a drop in the bucket considering the tens of thousands of different precancels out there.

Unfortunately, I have nothing much for Lincolns (except Lincoln, Nebraska), however, I'll share the list of 49 Illinois precancels that I do have:

49
ILLINOIS
Aurora
Batavia
BELVIDERE
Bensonville
Bloomington
Champaign
Chicago
CRYSTAL LAKE
Danville
Decatur
DeKalb
East St. Louis
Elgin
ELMHURST
Evanston
Forest Park
Freeport
Granite City
Harvey
Jacksonville
Joliet
KANKAKEE
Lemont
Macomb
Mendota
MOLINE
Monmouth
Mooseheart
Morton
Mount Morris
North Chicago
Oak Park
Peoria
Quincy
Rock Island
Rockford
Rockton
Springfield
Sterling
Stockton
STREATOR
Sycamore
Taylorville
Techny
Villa Park
Waukegan
Wheaton
Winnetra
Yoamure

Here is my list of Towns per state.

Alabama 9 of 340
Alaska 171 of 180
Arizona 110 0f 125
Arkansas 13 of 405
California 157 of 914
Colorado 238 of 244
Connecticut 25 of 286
Delaware 4 of 41
Wash. DC 1 of 1
Florida 360 of 438
Georgia 22 of 420
Hawaii 78 of 80
Idaho 78 of 123
Illinois 67 of 991
Indiana 32 of 565
Iowa 428 of 871
Kansas 36 of 696
Kentucky 9 of 277
Louisana 7 of 287
Maine 106 of 335
Maryland 15 of 239
Massachuetts 58 of 472
Michigan 37 of 655
Minnesota 659 of 668
Mississippi 3 of 409
Missouri
Montana 137 of 143
Nebraska
New Hampshire 120 0f 194
New Jersey
New Mexico 110 of 112
New York
North Carolina 10 of 725
North Dakota 78 of 303
Ohio
Oklahoma 6 of 396
Oregan 4 of 238
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island 22 of 68
South Carolina 4 of 319
South Dakota 130 of 253
Tennessee 9 of 421
Texas 26 of 904
Utah 95 of 95
Vermont 5 of 244
Virginia 5 of 390
Washington 9 of 298
West Virginia 14 of 229
Wisconsin
Wyoming 36 of 60
Puerto Rico 4 of 18
American Samoa 0 of 1
Canal Zone 1 of 1
Guam 0 of 2
Northern Marianas 0 of 1
Virgin Islands 0 of 3


United Nations 1 of 1

Marshall Islands 2 of 2
Mironesia 4 of 5
Palau 1 of 1
Canton Is./Phoenix Group 1 of 1

I'll finish later!

Warehouse, here is what I have for Palau (Koror) and Truk. They are yours for postage.

I assume RP means Republic of Palau and TT means Trust Territory, but why does Koror interchange its use on the first two stamps?

I used to collect Palau & TT - if I recall correctly, US stamps remained valid for postage for one year after Palau began to issue stamps in 1984 1983.

Thanks Bee See I'll take them! Email with intel.

The United States has no control of internal affairs of the former Trust Territories, excluding the Northern Mariana's, but the USPO still operates their postal systems.

TT was used for Trust Territory for Truk & Koror.
CI was used on Truk for Caroline Island.
MH used for the independent Marshall Is.
CM is now used for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana's.
MP in Saipan Military Post or Mariana Protectorate?
IS in Saipan Island of Saipan?
RP is for the Republic of Palau.

Thanks for the abbreviation list. I don't have any precancels from those areas, only the contiguous 48 States (and Hawaii) ... I never did find one from Alaska ... (yet).

wt1,
I'll have to check my list of IL towns. Maybe we can work out a trade for duplicates.

I'm willing. Any other states by IL? Let me know, I can post towns from other states, too. Although I should qualify that by saying that most of my small towns are confined to the northeast (PA, NY, NJ, MA, etc.)

wt1- Cool! THe only state I collect is my birth and homestate of Illinos. The other precancels I collect are for my Route 66 town collection: IL, MO, KS, OK, TX, NM, AZ, CA

Not too many from some of the States you collect, but here's my list:

MISSOURI (14)
HANNIBAL
CHILLICOTHE
Independence
Jefferson City
Joplin
Kansas City
KIRKSVILLE
Mexico
NEVADA
Springfield
St. Joseph
St. Louis
TROY
Westminster

KANSAS (13)
Atchinson
CHANUTE
Fredonia
Girard
Holton
Kansas City
Lawrence
LINDSBORO
Manhattan
MANKATA
Salina
Topeka
Witchita

OKLAHOMA (3)
Oklahoma City
Ponca City
Tulsa

TEXAS (10)
Austin
Brownsville
Dallas
El Paso
Fort Worth
Houston
Kingsville
San Antonio
SWEETWATER
Waco

NEW MEXICO (2)
Albuquerque
Raton

ARIZONA (2)
BISBEE
Phoenix

CALIFORNIA (29)
Alameda
ARLINGTON
BERKELEY
Burbank
Claremont
DESERT SPRINGS
ENCINO
Fresno
GLENDALE
Highland Park
Hollywood
HORNBROOK
KINGSBURG
Long Beach
Los Angeles
Modesto
Oakland
Pacific Palisades
Pasadena
Sacramento
San Bernardino
San Diego
San Francisco
San Jose
SAN PEDRO
Santa Barbara
Stockton
Watsonville

Warrehouse, the pyramid bill arrived on Friday, and the Koror / Truk precancels will be in the post tomorrow.