What Do We Have Here?

I'm always on the look out for interesting buys at our local stamp club auction. I'm not really a precancel collector, but I like different and interesting cancels in general and I think some of these fit. These were part of an old notebook full of US precancels, all Washington-Franklins and earlier. There are dozens more in the notebook, but these look to my untrained eyes to be the best. Can some of the experts in this area help this newbie tell me what I purchased today? Forgive me, I'm sure most of these have been covered here already, I'll peruse this section tonight!

Thanks!

I like the ones on the very first page, not sure what they worth but I havent seen them before, the older precancels seem to sell for more than the book says they worth. Most of them I see pretty often so not rare but I like them.

This is a very nice assortment of classic US precancels. The Amherst are listed in the new PSS classics catalog at 4 and 5 USD each, although like Jim says, they are seldom seen and usually sell for more. The doubled Chicago on the old 10c Webster books for 20 USD. The others not as valuable but a pretty group and very collectable. Please post some more scans, they are hard to evaluate without the reference books.

You bet. Thank you, I'll try to post some more tomorrow!

OK - here are a few more scans. Maybe some of these are of interest, although like I said not being a precancel collector, I am a poor judge. The parcel post stamps have always been a favorite set of mine, so maybe with these I'll start a precancel collection of this series. I have quite a few besides these. Were the precancels on the parcel post used before these stamps became valid for regular postage, or only after?

I'm not much of a precancel collector but I know I would have bid on that collection.
Vince

although 1 cents are pretty common the perfin precancel blocks and the triple balboa are nice

As it relates to those blocks of Chicago precancels with the perfin LOF/TIS, I found this reference to the company that used them:



Of course, for those who like to dig further into such things, I found this news article on the namesake of the company rather interesting:

The highest value in this second group is the 2c Detroit - it catalogs 15 USD.

I always thought it odd to perfin and precancel both 1 cent stamps, either would really only be used on commercial mail but I guess if he went to such steps to protect a 1 cent stamp we now know why he was rich. I wonder if on Christmas he got visits from the ghosts of Christmas.