1c Green Washington 1914? Help!

Hello everybody,
I am totally new to stamp collecting .I have bought a set of stamps at estate auction in Michigan several years ago.I looked at some old stamps but they were not worth but pennies. I recently started looking more closely into the values of some but cannot really determine.Maybe somebody can help me evaluate them approximately.Thanks allot.

davidgo, welcome to SCF. First thing is the Scott catalog, you local library may have one. Either Scott Specialized U.S. catalog or Scott Standard catalog Vol. 1. Next is a perforation gauge. Do you have a stamp clum in or near Rock Falls? That is always a good place to start.
The stamp you scanned could be many different catalog numbers I suspect that it is a Scott 542 Perf 10x11.

David, There has been a good thread on precancels here -
use the search at the top of the page.

I like the stamp, I have several of them myself, however, they are very common and have little philatelic value, as is the case with most precanceled stamps. For comparison, there are several current auctions on E-Bay attempting to sell a "collection" of these (and similar) stamps for less than $1 with few, if any, buyers. Here's a link to one auction listing that shows your stamp in the set:

http://cgi.ebay.com/CHICAGO-PRECANC...ht_500wt_959

I believe Chicago was close to being (if not the top) producer of precanceled stamps during the early 20th century because of the high demand for them in a city with a heavy business and industry center.

As stated previously, if you're interested in collecting precancels, check out the Precancel thread on this forum. The vast number of precancels available for collecting make it a very interesting (and affordable) specialty.