New Or Used ?

Is a precanceled stamp considered used- ? regardless if it was used for postage. ?? Or- If it was never used for postage- clean, mint condition is it considered new ?? I've read articles saying it both ways...

Betty0513. I believe your question can be answered in two ways, depending on what you collect!
Personally I collect Transportation Coils, a series of coil stamps that ran from 1981 to 1995 and featured both regular and precanceled stamps
To me, the rolls of precanceled stamps I bought years ago and are now part of my collection are still unused, or post office fresh if you will.
Are they mint? In my opinion they are. They still have the original gum and have never been used to pay for postage!
Some postal authorities are known to cancel their unsold mint stamps. I believe these could be called CTO, and are not mint any longer even though they still have undisturbed gum. These stamps can no longer be used as postage - the cancel rendered them unusable.
A precanceled stamp on the other hand is meant to be used after the cancel has been applied. If it has not been used, it is therefore ....unused!

Peter

A used for postal duty precancelled stamp is stuck to an envelope and is soaked off in water and thus has the gum removed in the water.

A mint preancelled stamp still has the gum on it and No postal cancels except for the officially sanctioned precancel.


The precancel is meant to save the time of postal employee and or machines who cancel the pieces of mail, and thus cost the buyer less than regular stamps, saving a small amount of money over time.

Now I understand- I wondered why so many didn't have gum on the back. Do people still wash stamps today ? If so, why ?

There are probably mint stamps that have gone through a washing / soaking / floating but when this happens they usually (as most stamps do) lose there glossy reflective shine on their fronts.

People still wash stamps off and reuse them when they have been postally used but it is against the law. Just don't get caught.

I collect used stamps and enjoy a good readable cancel or postmark, as do many. Others collect mint, post office fresh stamps, with the gum still on, intact and pretty as a picture.

Looking on ebay or Bidstart or Delcampe web sites will show many stamps sold as postally used and cancelled as well as many mint ones too of course.