Precancel Help

I'm not much a precancel colector so I thought I would turn to the pros. It's a precancel I have not seen before, but I know you guys/gals have.

Used by Montgomery-Wards at their Albany, NY store. They were the 1st user of this type of precancel!

The Albany NY and the lines were printed in Washington DC at the BEP during the stamp production process. The MW and date is a separate application done in Albany. Many styles, dates, and denominations exist.

Interesting, I had no idea that they would go through all the trouble of, adding the cancel mark in Washington DC just have them dated in Albany, NY.

Here's a copy of the US Post Office Department directive dating back to 1938 when they first required that precanceled stamps over 6c in value be imprinted with company initials and month/year of use:

Would this type of precancel be a highly desirable stamp by precancel collectors?

I personally doubt it, given that they were in all liklehood a big mailer, but what do I know (I know, as soon as I post it somebody will say it's worth millions of dollars). Is there a tear by the "¢"? I dont know whiter a stamps condition would lower the value of the precancel that's on it, but I doubt it would help.

yep, there is a small tear at the corner. to bad

Make that a scratch, still devalues the stamp.

A Damaged stamp with a good precancel can still draw a premium, the precancel is more important then the stamp.
Sure a good condition stamp is perferred but not require. This goes for rare or otherwise hard to find precancels.

However, yours is not likely one of thoses should be rather common. I'll check my catalog.

Precancels such as this were issued in the millions, so there is virtually no value to the "common" ones. The two most common varieties bearing initials and dates were MW (Montgomery Ward) and SRC (Sears Roebuck & Co.) both of which were major catalog mail order houses back in the day and were the most prolific user of precancels during that period.

For further reading on the subject, you might enjoy the first article at this link:

http://www.nwpl.org/documents/jan-feb2011.pdf

It would be 'worth' about 5 cents if it were a date I needed. Thats what you can buy all you want for.

WT1,

That was a very informative link, Thanks a bunch.


Chasa, That would be $.05 more then I have now,. If I decide to sell them I'll let you know.

ooops, no sale :) It is one I already have -----