Rt20 Obliteration - The Hard Way

I just picked up this curiosity. It is a RT20 C. B. Woodworth private die perfume stamp with the company name and city (Rochester NY) cut out. Eric Jackson has one where the obliteration is done via ink, but this is carefully cut (punched?) out. Has anyone seen this? Would the company do this or was this the work of some bored collector with a tiny pair of scissors?

i have seen the obliterated name version before, and Eric had told me a long time ago that a cut out version existed. googling the firm name shows some history but I did not see anything that would explain this. one possible explanation is a change of ownership or upper management. if this was close enough to the repeal of the tax, this method would have been cheaper than a change in the die.

Interesting, thanks. I'd like to think the company did this. If so, it would make it even harder to remove the stamp, and there might not be a lot of them out there.

I keep thinking that a couple of strategic pin holes and you would have a nice smiley face!

I have a copy of the printed obliteration - my understanding is that the private die owner would obliterate the company name when they sold the stamp for use by another manufacturer (since they got a discount on purchases from their private die they could resell to another user at a small profit or maybe just get sell surplus stamps to raise cash).

Other examples of obliterated names
Lanman & Kemp


Hall & Ruckel used by X. Bazin

I've not seen the Lanman & Kemp obliterations. Now I will need to look out for them! Here is a Corning & Tappan RT4 I have with an obliteration:



Besides the X. Bazin obliteration/overprint I think the Seabury & Johnson RS217 is the only other listed in Scotts. Why not list these others?

I had not seen the Lanman & Kemp obliteration's either. All the others I have seen before.

Those are the only obliterated Lanman & Kemp stamps I have ever seen

The Seabury and & Johnson obliteration is a different animal - they were sued by Brandreth over the use of the word "porus" which Brandreth had copyrighted and had to stop using the word on their stamps

Another copy of the RT20 obliteration...



Here's another Corning...




And a Hall with obliteration and no X. Bazin...

the lanman and kemps obliteration's may have come about due to the death of one of the partners around the time of the repeal of tax acts. it would have been cheaper to do that than change the die. if I remember correctly two types are known. the bazin's are from those sold by him and not by hall and ruckel. several different types are known. also known are manuscript cancels on the hall and ruckel stamps for use on good made by others but sold and stamped by them. if I recall correctly at some point there was an opinion by the commissioner that without formal approval no one but the registered user could order or use others stamps without a die change or identifying cancel. I think use of or sale of private die stamps to others would not have been in the original owners best interest.