Bay City, Michigan Precancel On Documentary Stamp

Good afternoon, all - Happy Father's Day to all that it applies.

As my title says, I have a 1¢ documentary stamp from the 1914 series that has a Bay City, Michigan precancel. I began wondering about it today. Was it common to use pre-cancels on documentaries between 1914 and 1940, or do I have an oddity? I seriously doubt that it is valuable, I bought it from a dealer who specializes in precancels and he probably would have sold it for more than $1 if it was.

There was a period of time around WWI when there was a tax on parcel post. It was usually faster to precancel the revenues beforehand, just as it was done to postage dues. So it happened fairly often.

Very interesting. Thanks, revcollector.

This is listed in the PSS Classics IIa catalog as L-5E at 50c, so one of the commoner doc-rev precancels.