Does Anyone Here Collect Cancels?

I was going through a box and came across
album pages with about 8 cut squares each.
Squares just a bit larger than business cards.
The stack of pages is probably 6 or more inches tall.
They were obviously in albums at one time...

Anyway, there appears to be a page of postmarks from
most, if not every, town in Pennsylvania! Most towns
just got one page, but Philly, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh
got several pages of postmarks. The pages are in alphabetical
order by town... Then when I got past the Z towns, I hit
more A towns, this time, New York. The NY pages got to the Cs.

The cancels are primarily 1940s to 60s, but there are a few
from the early 70s, and there are many from 1880-1930.

The franking is mostly USPS prefranked post cards or the
USPS embossed envelopes. There are the preposts with extra
postage stamps on some, and there are a very few cut squares
with just stamps.

Anyway, does this sound like something any of you have seen before?

I appears to me that someone was trying to collect a postmarked
square from every PO out there. Either they finished PA and just
started NY, or they had a much larger collection, and I just
happened to only get one whole state and part of another.

That is an awesome item to hold on to. More than likely the collector worked on a few states that were near and dear to him.

Any from Lock Haven or Jersey Shore PA? That's where I'm from originally! That would be awesome to see.

Please post some pictures. I've nice collection of cut corners (squares) or envelopes. Would love to see yours.
The postmarks are one niche, but the die and envelope cuts are something else again

I collect them to a degree. Nowhere near as many as you have suggested you have, though. I'd love to see some posted here.

A fellow here abouts collects Nova Scotia cancels and has quite a few over the years.

Some like to have all their stamps with nice readable CDS cancels if possible and a page full is impressive to see too.

Wow, I had no idea they were that popular.

I don't know for certain I have every town in PA, but there are a great many.
They were in alphabetical order. I didn't realize it at first, I didn't
know what I was looking at, and mixed them up pretty badly before I noticed they
were ordered. Sorry.

I will get you guys some scans now that I know you are interested. It'll be
tomorrow though. The night is done for me.

Check back tomorrow after lunch.

There is an APS affiliate that is devoted postmarks, The Postmark Collectors Club.

http://www.postmarks.org/

Postmarks are generally collected in 2X4 inch cut squares or on cover. That would explain the size.


Dan

I picked up a box of stamps at a yard sale last year. Inside there was a small assortment of postmarks mostly from Illinois 1960's. I started sorting them and pulling the towns of interest to me, but that was as far as I got.

Sounds like a very interesting collection, so looking forward to those pictures.

I collect local cancellations, and put aside any cancellation from Rogaland or from places that have a meaning or special interest for me. Also, for my Norwegian collection my future goal is to have all the stamps with a cancellation from a place as near to Finnøy as possible.

Yeah, I collect cover cancelled in Slate Lick, PA...
It's an unusual name, a retired PO, and my family has deep roots there.
(Never been there myself! )

Here are some of those sample pages.
I thumbed through a bit more, and I notice that the old-old cancels are
fewer between than I had originally thought. Some of those 1920s/30s
look much old at first glance. By far the most of the squares are 40s to 60s.

Ratio, looks like you got ahold of a REAL collectors hoard !! And I thought Jersey Shore was a Cable TV show !!

Nevermind, they are postal cards and envelope faces...

Okay...
Well, without getting into specific talk of sales outside the marketplace,
what would something like this be worth? Not catalog value, but just fair
value for a few hundred pages of this?

I ask because this collection is of NO interest to me, and is a 6" stack of
paper that I have to find a place to store.

So, imagine you were to put this up for sale here on the site, and weren't
looking for a fortune, but rather to help your fellow collector and get
a little mad money for yourself... What to ask?

Shipping is going to be the killer on that one.

Personally, I wouldn't even have the room for such a collection. From a mathematical standpoint, my initial reaction would be that if I were to modestly figure 800 pages with 8 cut square per page = 6400 pieces at catalog minimum $0.20, the "value" is $1280. Since all are quite common, even at 5% to 10% of catalog ($64 to $128), I suspect you're going to have to add on at least another $30 or $40 to ship it (in the US) and considerably more elsewhere, resulting in any good deal on the lot being eaten away due to shipping costs.

Perhaps others on this site would have other ideas as to value.

The sad thing about it is that someone put a great deal of time and effort into this collection and it would be a shame to "break it up", yet the value is in the collector's interests in the cancellations for that area of the country, not in its resale value on the secondary market.

WOWZERZ! Man those are really fantastic! And NO Jersey Shore PA. is a very small mountainous town nestled in North Eastern/ Central Pennsylvania. Everyone there despises that Jersey Shore NJ. TV series. We are in the Appalachian mountains and in the P.A. Wilds.