1861-1862 Franklin One Cent With Grill. Your Thoughts?

Hello. Found this one searching tonight. Turned it over and easily noticed the grill. Measured the grill many times and it measures 11x14. I was reading something awhile back that stated there was a rare grilled variety. Any thoughts on that? Of course, I'm not banking on this one but its always fun to think dream. Also, what about this nasty cancell? Thanks in advance for all your help!

Appears to be a 92 F-grill...

This appears to be a #92, an F grill. Not the really rare one, but still it catalogs $475; in this condition it would probably retail for somewhere in the $60-$75 range. A fairly nice item to just happen across.

I thought the same! Yes, lucky to come across! I have a older Scott cat. that list a 85a that measures a 11x14 grill high value??

I have just carefully measured the grill again and it definitely measures 11x14. Book says a f grill measures 9x13 and z 11x14. Should I have this stamp looked at in shop?

Count the points as well as measuring. And Z grills have to have horizontal ridges, not vertical like all the other varieties of grills. (But that's horizontal assessed with the grill oriented properly rather than rotated 90 degrees as you've done in the photo).

Trust disi and the Rev. It's an F grill, not a Z. The perfect is the enemy of the good. An F grill 92 is not bad.

More pictures...used my photo editor for clearer pictures. Extremely difficult to take good pics. Here are some with stamp upright.

The cancel is actually a nice Masonic FEZ cancel, a listed fancy cancel - so even better for the stamp IMHO.

That is very interesting! Do you have a reference for the Masonic FEZ info?

There are three cancellation reference books. Two of them are available for free download here:
http://www.uspcs.org/resource-cente...nic-library/

For cancels of this era, the most widely used resource is:

United States Cancellations 1845-1869
Hubert C. Skinner and Amos Eno
1980
ISBN 0-933580-04-5

Your cancel appears to be closest to the FR-NMc 6, which is in the Fraternal (Non-Masonic) book section. It is from Philadelphia, PA, and is known in black and blue colors.

So... I was a bit wrong in which this is identified as a Fraternal, not Masonic. Oh well.

Cheers,

Dave

No problem Dave! Thanks! And thanks Historical.

Don't bother measuring the size of the grill. It varies way too much.
Easier is to just count the number of rows and columns of points.
Then look your stamp up on this table: http://www.jamesdire.net/grill.html

chipg, I thank you for pointing out that resource.

Chip- Thanks for the great resource.

Great resource chipg! Bookmarked. I love this forum...learn something new every time I log on.