Why Is This Nyfm Cancel Not Sold For This Price?

Hello,

this is a NYFM which - I think - is a scarce one with only one cover known. So is this cancel a fake (does not look like the TR-M2 all in all), or is also a scarce NYFM not worth that price, or what else is the reason?

What should one pay normally for such a so-called rare NYFM cancel?
Just to get a price feeling here.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fancy-Canc...392344060275

Why would a one known item be sold on ebay for $25 and have no certificate?

what I meant above is that there is only one known on cover - but for sure some off cover. But my guess was that if there is only one cover known the off cover stamps should be kind of scarce as well, and in Weiss's handbook this cancel also called "rare".

I do not think that this is Weiss TR-M2. His cancel has a square center and the four arms of the cross are straight not indented where they join the center. His reported year of use for this cancel is 1871. This stamp appears to be a Scott 158 which has an EKU in 1873.
There are many similar cancels in this time period.

Thank you, so this is indeed not the TR-M2 which would explain that it does not sell for this price.

But if it was a genuine TR-M2 on a common stamp, what would be a price range on ebay without certificate?
Or are they so expensive that they only are sold at auctions with certificate and one should only buy there?

I just want to know how interesting ebay could be for fancy cancels, especially NYFM.

E-Bay is hit or miss. I recently bought a book for $12.50 that I lost earlier to another bidder at $70.00 (not the same copy).

I would say that NYFM cancels off cover do not have a strong demand. Better NYFM cancels (those with strong eye appeal, intricate design and scarcity) are in demand on cover. Especially strong are those from the 1860s time period such as the horse's head and Roman Soldier. 3¢ banknote stamps with NYFM cancels seem to have less demand.

In my opinion, not all of the cancels listed in Bill Weiss's work are true New York Foreign Mail cancels. The definition for that type of cancellation is a cancellation used only by the New York Post Office Foreign Mail division on mails to destinations outside the United States. Mr. Weiss's work lists cancels that were used by the Domestic Mail offices of the New York Post Office and happened to cancel a cover addressed to a non-US destination. These covers were placed in the wrong slot at the Post Office and cancelled at the domestic division office. Cancels such as these are typically found on lower value stamps like the 1¢, 2¢ or 3¢ values. Domestic Office covers can be identified by the postmark on the cover as the Domestic Division and the Foreign Mail Division used different postmarks.

Also, the front and back of the stamp do not match.

Thank you again, wtcrowe. If I understand you correctly, the NYFM off cover are indeed stamps that can be found without certificate and outside the big auction houses, as there is not much demand. I also made some searches the last months and saw very few NYFM sold at Siegel, for example. A search at ebay for sold items with "NYFM" shows that they are between 10 USD and 100 USD, many around 20 USD and many around 50 USD. So the only question would be if there is an unknown population gap between the more expensive ebay sales and the real auctions sales - I guess there is, and many collectors just don't sell their NYFM cancels so it's not easy to determine the value there. All in all it seems that it's easier to start collecting NYFM than Waterbury :).

Since you are in Europe, local sources should be fruitful for NYFM cancels. Some of my best NYFM cancels have come out of Euro collections.
Don

Yes, but they are nearly never offered as single stamps and with the keyword "NYFM" here in Europe (most don't know anything about this), so indeed you can find nice NYFM in big collections, but if you search a certain stamp or cancel, the supply is only in the USA.

And of course there are a lot of NYFM in the supply as many are common. I only wondered (that's why I asked about the stamp in the ebay link at the beginning) what is going on with the rare NYFM cancels (OFF cover). They don't appear (on common stamps) at real auction houses, but neither on ebay.

Here's Nick Kirke's collection of New York Foreign Mail cancellations from about 7 years ago (it's better now):
https://www.rfrajola.com/NK3/NK3.htm

If you're a member of the USPCS (www.uspcs.org), he wrote a great article about the NYFMs in the NY 2016 issue.
C.