I found a plastic baggie containing about 30 us precancel stamps. Mostly 1c 4th Bureau Issue but also had some 1-1/2c stamps as well as a 1/2c, 4c, 8c, and even a 12c stamp from the issue. A 1c stamp from the Washington-Franklin series was also found as well as a 1c prexie.
That was really nice to know. Maybe show us some photos here if you would have time. Where did you found that plastic baggie with stamps?
Precancels are kind of neat, some collectors make a speciality out of them. Some of them are quite rare and those that collect them usually get a catalogue for precancels. I have a bunch of them but never bothered looking into their value as "precancels".
The catalog is available and the pages are free to download from the web. I have an 8 foot bookcase of all the states (town and type) and bureaus. There is not much value in most of them but a very few of the bureaus or T&T's can be valuable. It is kind of like a crossword or jigsaw puzzle; lot of hard work and fun to do but not much value once it is done.
As Jim says, precancel collecting is "close work." Much closer than what I would call fun! Still, I have a small precancel collection. It is limited to towns in my home state, and a small collection of double line electros, which I consider the most attractive precancels.
Pre cancels are something Ive never really looked into,Ive always just thrown them into a cigar box and put them aside,looking now there must be 4-500 there. Part of the reason is I dont have the research material to get into them right now.
Well, nice find. I enjoy precancels, and I think I would have been happy if I found them. Also, can you upload some pictures? It would be lovely to see them!
Here are a couple example pages from my town and type collection. The first is the town and types in California album and the Los Angeles page. The second is more detail of type 61 from Los Angeles
It has been a busy year for my pre-cancel collections. I have way too many extras now, both Bureaus and Town & Types. If anyone else is working pre-cancels and has the same problem lets see if we can work out a trade.
You are lucky, where did you find it, was a legacy? It doesn't matter but you should check them carefully because you may have a rare stamp there that may worth a fortune!
While rummaging my back of book album I came across these two precancel pages. Forgot all about these, but apparently I had started to put together a collection of unusual town names. Looking at it anew, I believe it is more interesting than the Bureau and Town and Type precancel collections I started back in the early 90's. Were it not so difficult to find large lots of precancels to look through I would be tempted to continue this collection. Don
