Somewhat Different Precancel Raymond ?

i noticed this stamp going through my stockbook..it appears to be a pre cancel...i thought it might be Raymond, Illinois but could not find any info on it..there are numerous other towns in the U.S. with the same name...but the initials do not look right !

ok, now it appears to be Raymond, New Jersey..back to the catalog !

Looks like "ILL." to me. Seems to be under inked in the middle of the foot and over inked at the tip.

Robert

Thanks trainwreck, I knew I would get a response here...can find nothing on it..must be an unlisted local !

The stamps that were to the left and right had the overprint oriented horizontally, while on this stamp it is oriented vertically. I wonder if the person applying the overprint alternated between horizontal and vertical. Why not overprint all the stamps vertically?

Cheers, Robert

There is no Raymond, New Jersey ... so it must be Raymond, Illinois, a small town of only about 1000 people today.

However, the stamp is NOT a precancel; if it were it would only have bars or lines on the top and bottom of the Town and State names. Rather, it is merely a box cancel that post offices used commonly used back in the day to postmark stamps on parcels and large items. (That also helps to explain why the stamp has the postmark in different orientations.)

Incidentally, Raymond, Illinois did use precancels (two different types) but as I indicated above, the example shown is not one of them.

Ok, scratch him from the pre cancel thread...i still like the postmark !