Interesting Pre-Cancelled Stamps. What Do You Think?

First I would like to say I am new to your site. My grandfather was an avid stamp and coin collector. He passed a few years ago and me and my brother inherited the stamps and coins. They have sat in my closet for 2 years until recently I decided to check them out. I know nada about stamps but have spent about 2 weeks trying to learn terminology and stamp related info.I must admit those of you who are good at it....much respect.There are so many suttle things that can make a huge difference in a stamp to most that looks the exact same. Anyway I have lots of stamps from the early part of the 20th century and othesr. This first group is a tiny sample of some precancelled stamps. I was hoping to hear any information you may have on their collectibility andany other handy info. Also one of them is a coil stamp and 2 have inverted cancells in this picture. I have some others I will post today of coil stamps from Washington. Thanks

Hello...... seems like you have the interest in the stamps and your brother does not. Having been in your closet for two years he should give them to you.

I look forward to many more posts and scans from you. I have read your other posts and inquiries. I will get to my reference books later and try to help you out.

Butch

You are correct, these are indeed, precancelled stamps. These were used in the past before the advent of phorescent tagging to speed them through the postal system. If used on an envelope, it was not necessary to cancel the envelope; the existence of the city and state between the two lines or bars did that.

There is a whole field of collecting devoted to these. It is an unbelievably massive undertaking to attempt to build a complete collection, and to my knowledge, no one has even come close yet. If you consider just the regular issues and then narrow that to the major varieties, you're looking at approximately 200 different stamps. Then there's the number of city/state combinations which might be possible. 15,000 would be a rather conservative estimate. Big enough for you yet? Ohhhhh, I'm not done yet! Because there are usually 5 to 20 different devices used in each city! Conservatively, that would mean there could be as many as 3,000,000 different types/stamps if you just collected one of each city/state combination. Does anyone know what the end number really is? No, and that's one of the fascinations of this area for me.

Now, to help you with the identification. Each of these stamps, with the exception of the first, is a regular issue. The first stamp is a postage due stamp. It will depend upon the watermark/lack of one and the perf gauge to determine the exact Scott number.

The second one you show is easy - there's only one coil made with the 1922 Lincoln vignette - Scott 600. The precancel is one of three, depending upon the distance between the lines. It could be a 61, 71 or less likely, 81. These numbers refer to the type device used to create the overprint on the stamp. The way this is usually indicated would be to state the Scott catalogue number, followed by a dash and the PSS (Precancelled Stamp Society) number like this: 600-61.

The first invert appears to be a Scott 566 with a 204 cancel (Scott 566-204). If the perforations on this stamp are NOT 11 all around, the number would be 696.

The final stamp is most likely the 15 cent from the perf 11 series of 1917. It has a PSS type of 207, or if memory serves me, 236.5, but I'll have to wait until I get home to peruse the catalogues to make that determination.

Unfortuntely, these are all common precancels worth about five cents over catalogue value for the stamp itself. Still, it is a start. Just think - only 2,999,996 more stamps to go!