Man-In-The-Moon Cancel On #24

I picked up this #24 on Hipstamp at a very reasonable price. It came with a 1991 PF certificate, so I felt fairly secure that the cancel was genuine. It looks to me like a 6th row, Relief "F", from plate 10, but I can't say much more. Does anyone have a good reference that I could read regarding use of this cancel?

https://siegelauctions.com/lots.php...8&page_no=24
Looks like the upside down one here in Lot 65.
WOW - what a fine looking stamp!

Have you tried Stamp Smarter?


Peter

Petert4522 - Thanks for the pointing to the fancy cancels feature on StampSmarter. I forgot it was there.

From the database, it appears to be JO-167 from 1887, although this cancel may be different, and usage in this case was probably around 1860. The stamp has a 1991 PF certificate that identifies the cancel as S/E PH-F 89. I have no experience with fancy cancels , so it's meaningless to me. It attracted my attention because I hadn't seen a fancy cancel on a 1¢ Franklin from this issue before.

I wondered if someone knew more about the story behind this design, and how it came into usage, etc.

The cancel is indeed Skinner-Eno PH-F 89 used in Mason Ohio. Skinner dates this cancel to 1857. See page 120 of the PDF (document page 118).
https://d2jf3tgwe889fp.cloudfront.n...okmarked.pdf

Skinner-Eno notes that a cover exists. If this stamp was used for the 1 cent rate (a bald guess, though fancy cancels were used for that often enough), and if the contents had a year date, there could be a more specific date. Then again, the dating could just be from docketing.

There's normally not a lot of back story on any fancy cancels except for the Waterbury fancies. Mason was a small farming community for a long time (that goes against the idea of someone mailing a bunch of ads with the man-in-the-moon cancel), so maybe find the postmaster and class of post office in 1857 to see if he could be a candidate for being the maker.

The Stamp Smarter database #1 will not help you with this. It covers the Banknote era.

The attached PDF has an image of a cover with that cancel (page 25):

https://www.uspcs.org/wp-content/up...s__Heads.pdf

widglo, that is awesome! From Hipstamp, you say? I can't believe I missed seeing it. Do you mind saying who the seller was?

rog - good find on the Mason cover buried in that collection.

widglo - that #24 is a very nice item !

Good fancies from this early era can be difficult to come by.

Thanks to everyone for helping learn something about fancy cancels.

dudley - I bought the stamp from "uscprestigepostal". They had an anonymous dealer that I discovered after some effort was named Paige Adams, out of Queensbury, NY. I ordinarily hate buying from dealers on ebay or Hipstamp that won't even tell me who they are, but it seems to be a common practice for whatever reason. I'm always suspicious that they are a front-end for some wholesaler or auction house. At any rate, "uscprestigepostal" occasionally has some pretty high quality stamps among their listings, so I've bought from them before, and the company has always dealt very responsibly with me even though I've had to make several returns. I initially made my offer to Paige Adams, but I got a message back that informed me she had retired, and that as of the 1st of January, the "account" has been " inherited" (now managed/owned - who knows?) by Clark Frazier who has a well known connection with the APS.

Great find and great Stamp Widglo. You certainly have an eye for quality.

Don't know how I missed this one either. BTW, I think you got a great price too with the 20% off. Would have been a nice add to my esoteric space collection.