571 Lincoln Memorial San Francisco Precancel Pair

Came across this mint pair today. Full og top and small area of gum disturbance on bottom and wondering what a fair price range would be.

value below 1 USD, not mint any more

Good a place as any to open up this can of worms; I've been told the opinion of "experts" is that pre-cancelled stamps are considered used stamps. Whether or not they have been through the postal system used to mail anything doesn't matter, they are used stamps. If that's the case, how does the presence or absence of gum effect the price? I'm not a pre-cancel collector per se, but do wonder about this issue.

if they were worth more with gum all of the sudden we would see tons of regumed stamps show up. Some people collect mint stamps but they dont want to see a cancel on them, some people collect precancels and could care less if they have gum or not but nobody is trying to collect a set of precancels with full gum because it doesnt really exist.

A very small minority of precancel collectors collect and pay for NH copies of the bureau precancels mentioned in Scotts. On precancels like the San Francisco shown here, I know of no interest in gum and most precancel collectors would soak it off to prevent thins when mounting. My guess is that this pair WAS used, maybe part of a bigger piece that was on a parcel at one time that was only partially stuck down. It is possible that a gummed precancel was never used functionally, but it certainly is used philatelically.

Dealers list and price those that are not postally used as "mint," and others with no gum as "used," so I think those "experts" are wrong. For me, "mint" means "the same condition as originally issued by the government," so not postally used and with full original gum is "mint". I don't see why this definition can't apply to precancels. They are mint, but precanceled, and not used. I have and would pay more for precancels in that condition.

There are the 2 points of contention I've had with many in the stamp community (Not this site but in general)that Precancels are used stamps and priced according and they are not overprints.

In my way of thinking if the stamp is unused fresh condition it should be viewed as a Unused-precancel stamp with greater value then a postally used copy of the same stamp.

Most precancels are overprints (there are the modern day exceptions)! For Bureau precancels they were applied after initial printing of the original stamp in exactly the same manner as the Shanghai, Philippines, Cuba, Guam, Kansas & Nebraska as well as other early US overprinted issues. Others precancels were various handstamps & contracted overprints that were authorize by the US Postmaster General.

At least for the Kans/Nebr overprints, they were applied as part of the printing process, not after the printing. Not that that really affects your argument...