Pre Cancel 634

Hello

I am ready to put away my Washingtons & Franklins, for a few months. It has been a time consuming adventure, and sometimes frustrating.

I have identified this stamp as a 634 because of the 11x10 1/2 perforations. My guess is a type I although because of the placement of the precancel, I can not identify the type.

I am hoping for some help on the type. Also, any information on the precancel would be great.

This would be a SC634 for sure. This style bureau precancel [PSS-43] was printed before the 634A's were released. All of the bureau print 634A's are on the later sans-serif small precancels [PSS 61].

Thank so much

A couple of things for chasa:

a) This is fantastic to know - does it hold true for all towns/states?

b) How in heaven do you learn this stuff? Is this kind of detail in the specialized state by state catalogs? Or?

c) In your note, is PSS61 a typo for PSS63, or what am I missing?

Thanks.
--Jan

I can answer part "C" of your question. PSS-61 and PSS-63 are essentially the same; the only difference is that PSS-61 have two lines of text whereas PSS-63 have three lines of text. The size, font type, distance between bars, etc., are otherwise the same.

Good catch Jan - I did mean PSS-63.
a- yes it does hold for all states, the die-2 stamps - both coils and sheet stamps came out in the 1929/1930 time frame, If you collect covers of this era you know to look at 2-cent red's used in 1929 and 1930 - the die-2's are more prevalent than you might suspect - but only for those 2 years. The old style PSS-4x precancels came out before 1929.
b- the PSS-bureau catalog lists all the die-2 stamps on bureau precancels. There are a large number of die-2's on local precancels and checklists have been published in tha past. It helps to be knowledgeable in the intricacies of both 20th century US stamps and US precancel history. I've been a serious precancel collector since the 80's.