I finally finished imaging most of my acquisitions from the St. Louis Stamp Expo. It took a bit longer than expected.
I was able to fill a few tougher holes in my Scott number collection, add a few bisect usages, and add some neat and/or unusual cancels to my collection.
Without further ado...
First, a very nice R5b double transfer.
Next, an upgrade for my existing R65a, with nice big margins.
After not having any examples of R2b, the 1c Playing Card part perforate, I now have two. I could have opted for higher-grade examples, but I explicitly wanted examples with printed cancels.
Not from St. Louis, but from the recent Kelleher auction. An R64a with huge margins and a lovely early usage to boot.
A nice inexpensive example of R112b, sewing machine perfs, with a filled punch cancel.
A pair of bisects on documents. The first one is unidentifiable as to which 10c type it is, as it is only the top half of the stamp. The second is unusual in that it is not just by itself on document, but is bisected to make the 5 cents of a 25-cent rate.
A rather munched strip of 3 of R72a. The reason it captured my attention is the inverted day slug in the cancel.
A lovely pair of R43a, infrequently found in multiples. It was offered at a price I couldn't refuse. ;)
One that, while ridiculously expensive, was one I simply couldn't say no to. Not only is the stamp a wonderful example, but it is a scarce example of a Holliday's Cove Railroad cancel. This specimen is the example illustrated in Tolman's railroad cancel reference.
Another elusive hole in the collection filled, RB16c. Huge boardwalk margins, with a 2008 PF Cert. Signed on the reverse by George Sloane and John A. Fox.
This one wasn't from St. Louis, but arrived from
ebay at the same time I was processing these. At first glance, it's just an 1898 battleship usage on a check. However, what caught my interest is that its date is June 30, 1898, the day BEFORE the tax went into effect. Not sure how rare it might be, but it caught my interest as being potentially unusual.
Probably the find of the show for me, as it came out of a dealer's junk box. The night before, several of the revenue collectors went out to dinner at a little hole in the wall Chinese place (excellent food, btw.), and I had been mentioning my tiny collection of "doodle" cancels, or cancels in which the clerk drew eyeglasses or a moustache on George Washington. Lo and behold I find this one the next day. I wonder what the numeral "23" drawn atop the "25" denomination means...
A gorgeous (both stamp and the cancel strike) Victor E. Mauger playing card cancel.
I'll just round this out with some of the more interesting cancels I also picked up, either the strikes or early usage dates.
Posted 03/27/2011 9:03 pm
