Precancel With Private Perforation?

Has anyone ever seen a precancel with a private perforation before? I found this one in my collection and and i'm not much of a precancel collector, thus I know nothing about precancels :0). Could use some help identifying this one.I never paid much attention to it and thought it

was scott#575.

Quite common. What you have is a Scott #575 with Type III Perforations developed by the Schermack Mailing Machine Company (before it became the Mailometer Company). The Type III perforations were used in the company's affixing machines from 1908 through 1927 or 1928. My 2011 Scott Specialized Catalog suggests that a used precanceled example has a catalog value of $1.25.

I didn't know they precanceled vended stamps since they were rarley offered in blocks of four let alone in a precancel. Thanks!

In this case, the stamps are not "vended" ... as mentioned in my earlier post the Schermack Company used the stamps in their "affixing machines" to speed the attachment of the stamps to envelopes, a valuable time-saving effort to high volume precancel mailers back in it's day.

Note for future reference -- the 2c black Harding (Schermack) on cover, listed a few lines below your stamp = $7,500 on cover, one of the most valuable, and unrecognized by most.

Even the 1c Franklin issue shown in the original scan, if it were on-cover it would be worth $400; if precanceled on cover it would still be worth $115. Yet another example of why it is so important to retain stamps on cover whenever possible, rather than give into the desire to soak the stamps off paper.

Wow! That's a big difference in price. To bad someone removed this one. Still an interesting precancerous though.

"precancel" stupid phone

The nice thing about SCF discussions is that it makes you look back on your own collection of these things. Here is my collection of 1c Washington/Franklin issues with the Chicago precancel and Schermack Type III perforations:



Interesting that I hadn't noticed until now the fourth stamp in the above row that has some smeared printing in the lower left side of the stamp -- here's a close up:



Just goes to show what you can "find" when you give your old stamps a second (or third, or fourth...) look!

Wt1, I'm not saying that the stamp you pointed out in fact is what I am about to mention, but could that smear be a plate crack like the one from the 1870-1871 3 cent 147? It appears similar, yet the 147 is more pronounced. I also am guessing there would have to be more examples out there to confirm such a thing.

I just found it interesting as the marks are both in the lower left side of the stamps.

those are great examples.

I know the more times I go back through my collection I find what I din't know I had. Thats the great part of collecting!