USA 1926 Bisects On Cover Observation

I suspect something like this is purely philatelic especially given that Mineral Ridge, OH is not particularly small or remote PO.




From . . .

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bisect-3-CO...ht_922wt_916

I believe it HAS to be philatelic. There is no earthly reason to have to put two bisected two cent stamps on a letter to make a two cent franking!

Peter

The only reason is to take two used stamps with the cancels on the right side and reuse them.

The postmark is Mineral City, Ohio (pop. 727) and there is still a post office there today.

I love the US bisects.

Though I suspect you are correct, it does not perclude the possiblity that the PM at such a small location could have bisected his small remaining stock of 2cent stamps knowing replacement 1 cents were not going to be available soon and they could be used for both post card and letter rate in this fashion. Most philatelic influenced bisects are diagonal not horizontal. Because this office is small and volume low surviving examples would be nominal.

Not only are these two towns close to one another, both are within about 10 miles of Canton, which had a population of about 90,000 at the time. It's very unlikely that Mineral City would have run out of 1 cent stamps to begin with, and then cut ALL their 2 cent stamps as well. Not in 1925, when there was nothing to stop shipments on a daily or weekly basis and they could get some from Canton in an hour. Nov 25, 1925 was a Wednesday.

The reason I opened the possiblity of it not being philatelic influenced bisect is inpart the fact it's mailed to a church and lacks other features usually associated with philatelic influenced usage like handwritten, not typed, it has return address and there is no chachet, the envelope is very plain with a fair to good cancel not fine! Unless the Reverand or the sender were collectors I inclined to believe it was a real but unauthorized use!

Purely Philatelic. It's not like 2¢ Stamps were in short supply in 1926, especially those.

Also, there was absolutely no need to do that with the 2¢ stamps as they were in high volume production in the 1920's and just the pure fact that it still exists is a testament to it's philatelic origins in my personal opinion.