First Issue With Railroad Cancellations

A fellow collector at a stamp club I just joined is breaking up his revenue collection of cancellations. He showed me 2 pages of railroad cancels on various First issues. all are full perf and basically the 40 to 50 cent cat items. He is asking around $4-7 for each. Many are very nice handstamped railroad cancels with clean very easy to read cancels. are railroad cancels worth that much or more on common stamps? He said he will bring some better ones next month. He said he has about 300 railroad and 400 insurance cancels.

Thanks for any insight

When and where will we see the stamps and prices for each stamp?

They can be worth more, but there are also many common ones (N.Y. Central Railroad, for example). If he is allowing you to cherrypick at that rate, there may be some deals to be had on scarcer items, but if that is a bulk rate price, I would be careful.

Insurance cancels, in general, are not as in demand as railroad, but there are some scarce cancels (some of the independent insurance agent cancels can get pricey, the Howard Insurance Co. cancel in green ink is quite scarce, Phenix is a good one, etc.).

The more ornate and elaborate the cancel (in general), the more valuable it likely is.

Here are links to several 1st issue cancel collections I have purchased (no, they re not for sale). If any of the cancels correlate to ones you are considering, I might be able to give you my impressions. Bart as well.


1. Railroad, mining, and misc, purchased in 2009. I pulled some keepers out and then flipped the remainder.

http://www.revenue-collector.com/HeritageColl/


2. Insurance. Purchased in 2011. Still intact. Many identified by Tolman numbers.

http://www.revenue-collector.com/insurancecoll/


3. Railroad, proprietary, steamship, playing cards, etc. Purchased in 2011. Still intact.

http://www.revenue-collector.com/railroadmisc/

Thank you so much for the inforamtion and guidance Rev. I asked him in an email if he could scan the pages he had showed me so hopefully I will have a better idea.

I would like to compliment you on your railroad pages. Very nice.

As per your comment for insurance cancels, the rare green you mentioned is that from your experience or written somewhere within a referance guide or journal? Just trying to acquire knowledge anyway I can. Thank you.

Experience, seeing prices at shows and online, auction results. There are no price guides for cancels.

Richard, I lost your email, send and I'll forward some new plate varieties. Karl

Some of the scarcer and more famous cancels have a generally accepted price range, after that it becomes "how desperate are you to own it".

Very nice stuff rev!