Where Are Precancels?

I have a bunch of
Precancels and wonder what section they fall under? Back of Book?
I did a search here on SCF and came up with 79 page result.

I want to auction them off somewhere...eBay?
I am on Listia and can get credits for them (which I build credits and then buy Amazon gift cards) or maybe some other auction site less expensive than ebay?

Here are just a few ..I have about 5 times more...sell in smaller lots or one big huge lot? Or I should check out this forum's auction?
Thank you, Sue

They are not back of the book. They get listed in 1901-Now used or in collections.

If you're going to list them for sale, here are a few suggestions for your consideration:

First, I'd sort them by States, then you can offer them in lots of all "New York" or "Ohio" or whatever.

I'd also separate the ones that have the rubber stamped dates such as "MW NOV 40" as there are some collectors that collect those as a sub-specialty (MW = Montgomery Ward, the prolific mail order business of the day).

I also spot a few Canadian stamps in the mix and those should be sorted separately, as some may collect only US or Canada (not both).

I would also separate out any stamps that are NOT precancels. For example, in your third scan, there is one that reads "Bishop, Texas" but that is box cancel typically used on parcels and not to be confused with a precancel. A precancel would have bars or lines on the top and bottom ONLY of the city and State name.

Unfortunately for the seller, the majority of precancels have only nominal value and collectors would typically buy smaller lots in order to fill in spaces in their collection. Nevertheless, it can still be a rewarding collection, especially as one learns of all of the small cities and towns that used precancels all over the country.

Wow wt1, thank you so much for the advice!
It will help me out tremendously!
Thanks again!
Sue

Thanks for posting these, Sue and bringing up this topic. I have been wondering for some time about organizing precancels and wt1's answer helps a lot.

I also have a lot of these and was wondering if there was some activity that could be created for kids to teach them about precancels. Does every state have precancels? If so, maybe the kids could try and find one for each state. Does anyone have other ideas?

As of the most recent PSS Town and Type catalog, they come from all states, 21,340 different towns. Many topical collections are possible: state capitals, cities on route 66, city names that are state names such as Virginia Minnesota. More info: www.precancels.com

Sue,

You have a really nice pile of precancels. May I suggest you learn some more about precanceled stamps and begin your own collection if you have the time. The above link to the PSS is a great place to start. The fun you will have should be worth much more than the few dollars you'll get for your stamps at auction. This comes from my own experience.

Collecting precancels is really a lot of fun. Good luck with which ever decision you make. After all they're your stamps.

Hi begoniabo,
I took your advice.
I removed these stamps from being auctioned and am going to have some fun studying.

Thank you and all especially for the website.
I have about 5 times as many of these precancels and definitely a lot of hours of fun rather than a couple of bucks!
SueStamps

Sue,

You made the right decision. You are going to have a lot of fun and learn a lot also. I find precancels very interesting. Dan

Y'all need to quit talking up the precancels. I haven't even started putting my regular stamps in an album yet, and y'all have me intrigued about precancels. XP

I left a stamp site because of USA precancels.

As not one person complained! In general discussion there was a comment about the selling section that it did not matter if you sold a precancel forgery as the real thing because forgeries are everywhere and everyone has forgeries in there collections. So why should anyone care about something like that.

Well I do and I did!

KGV,

Forgeries should not have been taken so lightly by that group. The US precancels I collect are all in the area of 10 cents apiece so it would be crazy to forge them so I don't worry. There appears to be only a handful that are such a high value to be worth forging. If I did want to purchase a high value it would have to be expertized. Dan

I would love to see a forgery precancel please!



Sue

Me too! Forgeries are not as prevalent as some people suspect.

I couldn't see a motive for doing it. Anyone agree? who'd want to forge or fake a cheap stamp?


-IBFS

IBFS - there are at least 3 reasons...

One: - forgers need to practice, so they start on junk stamps - and usually finish on them.
It is harder than it looks to get the city/state letters in the perfect matching font to duplicate a rare precancel.

Two: - once they think they have realistic letters they will make a fantasy from an unknown town using cheap stamps.

Three: this was more prevalent in the old days, if a set like the Lexington Concord by some happenstance only had legitimate precancels on the 2 & 5 cent values for a town, a forger would make on on the 1 cent to have his personal complete set.

Eventually these weeds get passed along wih collections and amuse or infuriate us specialists.