Revenue Usage Of US Scott #116... With A Bit Of Hydrogen Peroxide Treatment.

My apologies for the quality and size of the "before" image, but I didn't think to scan the stamp before treating with hydrogen peroxide, dagnab it! So all I have for the "before" image is what I received from Siegel before the auction to evaluate the lot.

I'm quite pleased with the resulting color.

I wish this were still on document, as I have never seen a #116 used as revenue before.

I believe the cancel to be "Oehlrichs & Co", a steamship company in New York.

I dropped it into retroReveal. I think you are correct About the cancel being Oehlrichs & Co", a steamship company in New York.

Wow, what a difference.

Did you fume it or give it a peroxide bath?

Qtip dipped in HO2.

Really like the way Retroreveal brought out the grill.
Super.

And the finger prints!

That was my first impression, till I spotted the engraving.........

Jim

Given that the 10 cent value was often used overseas, and the steamships went overseas, it is not guaranteed that this is a revenue usage. A revenue usage document would have to be found with the same cancel to prove it.

Another web site shows a cancel for Oelrichs & Co.
http://1898revenues.blogspot.com/20...company.html

That's a different cancel. You would have to see this cancel used to be sure.

However this style of oval cancel for the period is almost exclusively a revenue cancel rather than postal. I've seen covers from the late 19th century with this style of cancel, but none from the 1860s (that I can recall at any rate).

Without the stamp being on cover or document, we have no way to be absolutely certain, but I would say the likelihood is far greater that it is a revenue usage than postal.

I would say that the chances of this being used on an envelope that was carried outside the mails by steamship is nearly 100%. On privately carried mails an equivalent amount of postage had to be prepaid as would have been required had a letter been posted. This would have been on an outbound use cover from the United States by steamship.

Richard, do you have an image/link of an example for comparison?

Thanks.

I am tied up with a net price sale but the two pages in PDF file linked below might help clarify. Three covers from same correspondence that were carried as loose letters on an inland lake steamer. The two on first page show private carriage with typical markings and the required US postage paid even though they did not enter the post office mails. The third cover was carried on steamer and was given to a post office route agent onboard the steamer and bears a postmark (purser's ticket-dater on reverse).

I said outbound on your cover because had it been on an inbound cover it would have entered the mails, even if for port of entry delivery, with a steamship cancel so ticket dater cachet would not have been applied to stamp which would have voided it. As outbound use would need a "cancel" and the receiving foreign post office would just add a postmark and any postage due that may have been due.

http://www.rfrajola.com/2k18/lakegeorge.pdf

Thank you.