How Stamp Collectors Collect US Precancelled Stamps


The first thing to keep in mind is that with precancels, the precancel marking is much more important than the stamp itself.  As always, precancel stamp collectors diligently try to find stamps that are free of faults and well-centered, but if nothing better is available then damaged or imperfectly-centered stamps will do until a better quality replacement is available.

Many precancel stamp collectors arrange their stamps in alphabetical order, going by the city and state of the precancel.  If a precancel collection is large it can be split into two sections, one for Bureau precancels and the other for local precancels, again arranged in alphabetical order.

Precancel stamp collectors get a lot of bang for their buck.  Most precancels are pretty inexpensive, but there are some rare and pricey exceptions among the local precancel stamps.  The Precancel Stamps Society produces two comprehensive precancel catalogs, one for the Bureau precancels and the other for locals. 

United States Precancel Stamps - a Basic Primer

A few months ago I wrote a general introduction to US precancel stamps. Since US precancels are an interesting topic and a very popular stamp collecting specialty, I thought it might be helpful to revisit the topic and go into a bit more detail about these fascinating and very collectible stamps.

As a refresher, a precancelled stamp is any postage stamp, piece of stamped postal stationery or revenue stamp that has been cancelled before being affixed on a cover or parcel, or before being deposited at the post office for mailing.  Precancels allow the mailed item to bypass normal post office canceling, thereby expediting the mailing process, but their use is restricted to permitted mailers.  The original basic design of all precancel stamps features city and state names inside overprinted horizontal lines or bars.

Since the 1970’s the USPS has produced “lines only” precancels (sometimes called National precancels), using lines or bars but with no information identifying a city or state.  Since these lines only precancels were generic they allowed the same precancelled stamps to be used throughout the country.

All US precancels up to the 1986 8.3 cent Ambulance Transportation Coil stamp have these overprinted horizontal lines or bars across the stamp.  Later precancels do not have these horizontal lines or bars.  Current US precancelled stamps use printed inscriptions such as “Bulk Rate”, “Non-Profit”, etc. that are incorporated into the stamp's design.  Stamp collectors differ on whether these stamps should be counted as true precancels or not.

There are two basic types of the traditional United States precancel stamps:

1.  Bureau precancels, which were printed and precancelled by the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, DC.
2)  Local (city) precancels, which were normally precancelled in the city or town in which they were intended to be used.


Bureau precancels

Bureau precancels were printed when the Post Office Department felt that large orders of precancels could be produced more inexpensively by the Bureau than through the alternative of hiring smaller local printers.  They were ordered andprinted in large bulk lots of at least 500,000 sheet stamps or 250,000 coil stamps.  Bureau precancel overprints were only used on specific definitive stamps and stamp sets.

Bureau precancels (other than the National precancels) always use single lines (never double lines or bars) above and below the names of the city and state.  Several definitive stamps that were normally produced with tagging have untagged Bureau precancel "varieties" - the untagged versions being known to exist only as Bureau precancels.


Local (city) precancels

Smaller orders for precancelled stamps were printed locally using either electroplates or precancel devices such as rubber stamps.  Unlike Bureau precancels, which appear on only specific definitive stamps and stamp sets, local precancels potentially exist on virtually any US stamps.  Many are fairly easy to find but some are quite rare, with only a few examples known to exist. 

There are several main types of local precancels, although there are thousands (if not more) of varieties. 

1.  Typeset and hand-stamped precancels. 

These are easy to identify because they lack any uniform design.  The precancel markings themselves range in quality from very good to pretty crude.

2.  Single Line Electro (SLE) precancels, produced by local post offices using Electroplates.

3.  Double Line Electro (DLE) precancels, produced by by local post offices using Electroplates.

4.  Dated precancels, produced on denominations greater than 6 cents. 

In 1938, the Post Office Department began requiring all precancels with denominations over 6 cents to bear the mailer's initials and the month of use.  Designed to prevent re-use of precancels, the most common dated precancels are MW (Montgomery Ward) and SRC (Sears Roebuck & Company). 


Tomorrow's post here on the Wholesale Postage Stamp Spotlight Blog will talk about how to collect US precancels.  Stay tuned!

Types of Stamp Cancellations & Postmarks: Part I


Precancels vs. Cancelled-to-Order (CTO) stamps:

Some stamp collectors may be a bit unclear about the difference between these two types of cancelled stamps, so we thought we'd give a bit of information about both of them. The key difference is that precanceled stamps are actually used on the mail.

Precancels:

Precanceled stamps are stamps that are cancelled before they're used on the mail. We know this might not make much sense, since stamps normally are cancelled after the mail they're on arrives at the post office for processing. But precancels were used in order to make mail processing faster - since the stamps were already canceled, the canceling process at the post office was bypassed.

Precancels were applied in one of two ways, either printed on the stamp or handstamped using a rubber stamp. In the US, precancels were printed by the federal government (usually called Bureau precancels, after the Bureau of Printing and Engraving), printed locally by local post offices, or handstamped at local post offices (not surprisingly, these latter two types are called local precancels). In the US and Canada, precancelled stamps were used for first class mail, parcel post and bulk mail. Some larger companies used them as a substitute for perfins - a security device to stop their employees from using the stamps for their personal mail or to sell. Precancels were generally used in other countries to mail newspapers.

Thousands of different precancels and varieties exist, and collecting precancelled stamps is both challenging and rewarding. Catalogs and lists of town precancelled stamps are readily available.


Canceled-to-Order (CTO) Stamps:

CTO stamps have been canceled by the issuing country's postal authority before their sale and are usually sold to stamp dealers for a reduced price. The stamp dealers then sell them to stamp collectors, often passing on their savings in the form of reduced prices. CTO stamps are not valid for postal use. They generally still have their full original gum, and the cancellations are almost always very neat and clear; often just a corner of the stamp is canceled so that the stamp design is not impacted. Many people collect CTO stamps because of their lower cost, and in fact the catalog prices for the stamps of some countries is for canceled-to-order stamps rather than postally used (which have a higher catalog value and cost more).

Many beautiful topical stamps are mainly available in CTO form. Don't turn your nose up at them, because they can be a way to inexpensively build a beautiful stamp collection.