Is This A 3 Cent Locomotive Without A Grill?

Hi! I have found three 3-cent locomotive stamps in my father's stamp collection. Two of them have very visible grills, but I think the one shown in these scans might not have a grill. I'm not sure, though, because there is an area visible on the back that could be a pressed-out grill.

Here are scans of the front and back.

What do you think?

You are correct, the pressed out grill is visible in the lower half of the stamp. It will stand out more if you dip the stamp.
Don

Thanks. I guess that's why it was adhered to the #114 place in the album!

Stamp collectors are a funny bunch. We are desperate not to see a grill on the 1869 issues and look for even the tiniest trace of a grill on the 1870 series.

alub I never thought of that but I chuckled and have to agree with you.

As for the stamp, it has a bit of an unusual (to me) oval shaped cancel nicely placed on the stamp. I wonder if it can be identified with certainty, seeing that it is quite faint and possibly incomplete.

So true...searching for rare stamps is an engaging challenge!

The Locomotive stamps in this collection may have been on letters received by the ancestor who began saving stamps in the 1800's, so I took a look at the others.

The cancel on the top stamp might be the same, although the more I look at it, the less sure I am. I'll check other stamps from the same time frame later.

Perhaps the ink blurred when the stamps were soaked off the envelopes (I wasn't the one who did that!).

Look for a later New York registry cancel. Two misidentified 125 stamps have been offered on ebay as Scott 114. In both cases, a buyer who saw the listing was astute enough to recognize the later cancel for what it was. The buyer of one of the stamps was able to buy it for $30 although he bid a lot more.

What a lucky find for the buyer!