Is There A Precancel Checklist By Stamp?

It's time to go through my big pile of US precancels.

I've downloaded the 'Town & Type' and 'Bureau' files from precancels.com. That's a ton of info to read through, but interesting and thorough.

There are so many and I realize that I'll never have a large comprehensive collection, so I'm thinking about organizing by stamp number. Is there a checklist for this? It looks like all files go by city/state.

I'm going to use 8 line vario pages, so I can move them around as needed. I'd use the checklist to keep track of inventory, but also to help determine how big a stamp section could get.

Please point me in the right direction.

First thought was to use precancels.com. You beat me to it though.
You could just send them an Email and ask this question - they may just have such a list


Peter

In general there is no such list. For a limited number of Scott numbers we do have good published data. Examples are the 'Washington Franklin' era stamps 1908 thru 1923. Washington Bicentennials. Black Harding issues. Overrun Countries. All Pre-1908,
Various other lists exist privately compiled and distributed. As many issues have 10 thousand or more different precancels you can see why the effort would be overwhelming. Some lists exist for individual states (mine for AL/MT/VT) can be mined for the data.

Thank you both for your replies.

Obviously I didn't think this through properly. I'll start small and see how it goes.

Looks like the only sure things are that I'm going to have more questions and I'm going to need another shelf for binders.

are you looking for one in particular?

No, nothing in particular yet.

As I look through my stuff, I see mostly stamps from the president series. Maybe I'll concentrate on them. It's a large area so it'll be a fun challenge.

You can certainly collect and organize the way which satfies you.

I have one detailed state collection which is very traditional by city, then precancel type, then Scott number.
In contrast, the Prexies are a modest national accumulation sorted by denomination with groupings of Bureaus then locals; each by state, city, and type. Followed by perfins for each denomination.
It is a matter of whether the precancel or the stamp drives the initial sorting.
And yes, Vario pages are ideal

Chasa, John Becker and others reading along:

You've got large collections, do you have any 'advice/tips/watch out for or don't do this' ideas you can pass along? I really don't like having to go back and re-do things and since I'm just starting out with this area, I'm looking for suggestions and guidance.

Have either of you posted pix so that I can see 'your style'? Positioning, labeling, etc

Thanks in advance for any help.
Ogi

I've done both, by stamp design, and by state. I find that sorting by stamp design first is easier and faster, and I think the end result is cleaner to see all of one stamp design on a single page, rather than a hodgepodge of stamp designs on the page when sorted by city&state (which I think is how most people organize their precancels).


I started on Vario or Hagner pages then bought a bureau collection on K&P pages by state, and then another collection on I think Steiner pages, by stamp design.
I now have two bureau collections that I am maintaining basically in parallel and I still prefer the one by stamp design. The town&type precancels are still on Hagner pages, by stamp design. The inventory is the collection itself, I do not have a checklist. It is fun but can be overwhelming to aim for any sort of completeness. I just keep adding to the Hagner pages, overlapping stamps alphabetically until they become too crowded and then I divide the page into two pages, leaving room for expansion.

I don't know about the other PSS catalogs, but their down-loadable Bureau catalog is searchable by Scott Number. Thinking you probably know this, but threw it out here just in case . . .

Hey ZebraMan - Interesting sorting method. I sort of fell into doing the same thing. It really does make it easy. I like your parallel collections too. I think I will do the same thing as my collection grows. I see what you mean by 'the inventory is the checklist'. I was hoping that there was a portable checklist for my phone that I could refer to when I'm out hunting. It makes the 'need it, need it, got it, got it' easier.

And yes to Robert_Lee76. I have searched the data and see that I could create my own lists. I was hoping that someone had already done some of this work and might be wiling to share...maybe in exchange for some precancel stamps. :)

In my Scott US Specialized catalogue I found the Bureau numbers at the end of each issue. It shows how many there are for each denomination, but not where they are from. It's a start.

Thanks for the great comments and suggestions - does anyone else have ideas or contributions - none are too obvious and will be appreciated