Show Your US 1857 Perforated Stamps

Here is a stamp which I think is a 26A with possible a guide dot at the lower right.
I hope the image I have here allows for a good review. There is an "under inked are pos in postage by the looks of things however the actual stamp does not appear to have been damaged. TIA

This is the top label image and might this qualify as a double transfer?
Her is the entire stamp.

The stamp is clearly a 26A, as the framelines are broken and also not straight.

The scan resolution isn't great for doing detailed analysis. If its a known double transfer possibly someone will recognize it from this, possibly not.

I first saw a picture of this cover about 30 years ago, and I've always wanted it.

A relic from the west: Prospecting Miners Illustrated Miner's cover.
This is postmarked from "Oregon House, CA" June 10.
The year is either 1860 or 1861 no doubt, based upon the EDU of the 5c stamp.
The DUE 10 clearly ties the 3c and 5c stamps.

I posted this here in the "perforated" stamps thread as its kind of amusing that the sender scissor separated the stamps, thus removing almost all of the perforations, and some of the design.

The 3c stamp is hard to identify but is likely Ty III #26. The 5c stamp is Ty II Brown #30A, and the 1c stamps are Ty V #24.

ex-Knapp, Wiltsee & Polland

Really nice cover Txstamp. The two #24s really pop out with their crisp impression and beautiful blue. Help me with the process here. Letter was dropped off with these 4 stamps affixed to it and then when it gets to Wabash County, IL they stamp "DUE 10"? Or, was it sent "collect" and postage applied once it was in Illinois?

Harper1249

Harper, you ask the right question. To me this cover is a bit of an enigma.

If this cover entered the mails in San Francisco, or Sacramento (which it does not appear to have), then the DUE 10 would be perfectly proper, for an overweight letter requiring 20c postage to mail back east. The single rate was 10c. This was June 1860 or 1861.

The DUE 10 on the cover appears to match San Francisco's but Sacramento also had a similar stamp. Oregon House is a small mining town north of Sacramento.

The issue I have with this cover is that the town of Oregon House clearly did not have handstamps. Covers were almost always rated at the PO where they entered the mails. They might get re-rated at the destination PO if they are forwarded, advertised, or remailed. But to get a DUE 10 applied at some PO in-transit is unusual. Typically, even if a cover was overweight, but the origin PO missed that rating, I almost never see the destination PO 'fix' that. I put this under a glass when it arrived, and the DUE10 appears well tied to the two stamps, to me.

Now consider if the stamps did not originate. Then we have a stampless cover with a DUE 10, and we still have the same dilemma with the Oregon House and a DUE 10. No difference in what I perceive to be the issue here.

The stamps are paying a proper single rate. Additionally, the stamps are pen cancelled, which seems to match the Oregon House pen cancel. It is tough to tell that for sure, as the cover I'm sure has been cleaned/restored as is the case with almost all of these kind. Often the stamps are not touched in that case, and you get some fading of the ink on the cover but not the stamps. Anyway, the Oregon House postmark and the pen cancel I would argue agrees well enough, so my current take is this was some sort of mistake by the Sacramento or SF PO. That seems unlikely and/or weird, I agree. Maybe Mt Carmel applied this, but I'm not sure why.

If this was mailed in June 1861, then it likely went via Steamer via Panama, since the Butterfield Overland Mail had collapsed due to the civil war, and it likely would have re-entered the US at New York. Now NYC shouldn't have had any reason to re-rate this, but maybe that happened for some reason.

Anyway, this cover has a 100+ year pedigree and I've seen very old photos of it. There were shenanigans going on with covers in the early 1900s of course, but in spite of the peculiarity, I don't yet see anything that tells me the cover is 'bad'. Just odd.

I welcome any input.

Another Oregon House - very similar style -

Also odd as a fairly late use of a miner's cover - these were mostly used in the mid-1850s

Agreed. There were quite a few used in 1857, and I did find one with a perforated 10c stamp, seemingly well-tied with a March cds, which means at least an 1858 usage.

The cover in question could have been 1860. But yes, a bit of an outlier.

So if this were a stampless cover and all of the stamps 'and' the DUE 10 were added, possibly over a 'due 10' in manuscript, that would actually make sense.

I have no plans to disassemble the cover to check that, however.

edit: I will, however, put it up to the light and see if I can see anything underneath.

edit2: for what its worth, Siegel sold a #68 on a Miner's cover: sale 1265, lot 852. Talk about late.

I pulled out the Kutz Gold Fever book which has a census of miners covers.

He states in part: "Stamped but probably sent from San Francisco…etc". So this has been noticed before.

Kutz also mentions a few covers were mailed in the 1860s.

The cover is sealed tightly so I cannot get in to see underneath the stamps. Oh well. I do wonder with all of these little mining towns, often served by private express; but here relying on a mail contractor for the us mail - if there was some hiccup. Not inconceivable.

I think the cover is good - but something weird happened with the handling of the cover

Here is a pair of 26a which I would like some additional information on if possible.
I notice a break in the oval at about 5 o'clock and wonder if that is a way to know which relief this is?

Jumbo?

Nice stamps.

All top row relief A with the damaged transfer.

The right two are Ty III #26, the left one appears to me to be a Ty IV #26A, but my eyes are waking up slowly this morning, so maybe someone could double check me on that.

Tx, I agree.