Recommendations Wanted For Precancel Stamp Catalog(S)

Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I recently acquired a large holding of precancels and though I usually do not pay much attention to this material but the wide diversity of issues and towns has piqued my interest.

https://goscf.com/t/11420
here is one for Montana
http://www.precancels.com/literature/Montana.pdf

Welcome to the Precancel world!

If you are going to seriously pursue this area, and it's worth doing, consider joining the Precancel Stamp Society. They are the authors of all the catalogs and books on precancel collecting. Being a member gets you their journal and a discount on the catalogs when you order them.

I would start with the town and type catalog. This will cover almost all of what you have. It's the jumping off point for everyone who collects precancels.

If you have any questions on using the catalog, don't hesitate to email me. I'll be happy to help.

Good luck!

Many thanks Stampman! I will join this week and order up some catalogs. I will also take you up on your offer of help. It seems a bit overwhelming right now as I start down this road. Looks like fun though.

It's a great part of the hobby which, with a few exceptions, will not break the bank.

I don't believe anyone actually knows how many stamps it would take to have a complete collection of every town on every stamp which used every type of precancel device.

I've heard estimates of anywhere from 500,000 to over 1.5 million stamps. So, you can pursue this forever and are not likely to run out of stamps to find!

I was glancing through the precancels and it was fascinating to see the towns that I had never ever remotely heard of as well as the wide variety of issues. I am excited to dig in.

If I go down this precancel road I would have to stick to Canadian only. Not as many, or start when your young as it will be awhile.

Imagine, even if you get them all with 500,000 up to 1.5 million possibilities at .10c each, that would cost you anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000.

Oh the thrill of the hunt!

Mike

For US precancels, I highly recommend the PrecancelDB program and its databases, as well as the pdf versions of the catalogs.