Free Town and Type Albums for Download
The PSS is pleased to provide comprehensive albums on a state by state basis for all precancel towns and types in the 8th Edition Town and Type catalog. These albums contain a space for every precancel type from every town, more than 42,000 types in all the albums combined! You will find a downloadable PDF file for each state. There is one space for each type in each town. To distinguish the types, you will need the PSS Town and Type catalog, which you can order from HERE.
Choose one of the following page styles to suit your needs:
Town Name INSIDE Boxes:
- Standard 8.5×11 inch pages – Town Name INSIDE Boxes
- European Format A4 pages – Town Name INSIDE Boxes
Town Name BELOW Boxes:
Notes Regarding the Town & Type Albums:
The more valuable types have progressively darker box borders, depending on the value of the precancel type:
Occasionally there are two or more types from a town, such as Type 841 from Buckland, Alaska, that differ in minor ways, as described in the PSS catalog footnotes. In this case, “a1” in the first 841 means that the distance between town and state is 1 mm, while in the second type the “a1.5” means that the distance is 1.5 mm. Click HERE to see a description of all of the footnotes in the PSS Town & Type catalog.
A few types only come on parcel post stamps, or on other non-standard sized stamps. You will find these boxes have the correct shapes.
The small album for the Territories comes in two flavors, depending on how you sort the town names versus the territory names.
PSS Computer Program for Microsoft Windows for Download
Fully functional database for Microsoft Windows (XP, 7, 8, 10) including the content of the PSS Town & Type and PSS Bureau catalogs. This software allows you to keep track of your collections and make albums in a variety of formats. Full documentation and example screens are included. This download is restricted to the state of Alabama.
Free “Devices and Dates” Document Download
This is a listing of all of the available dates on which the post offices were authorized to use precancels or the dates that devices were ordered for or furnished to the offices. Formerly known as “The Lyon List”, Jim Callis and Jim Baird have not only updated this hard to find large document, but also married this data with the 2019 PSS Town & Type Catalog device types. It is now available for free download.
Devices and Dates Document:
Free PSS Style Chart Album Download
This is the PSS Official Style Chart Album of US Contracted Precancel Devices. NOTE: Locally produced devices are not included. It is now available for free download.
Devices and Dates Document:
Free Double Line Electro (DLE) Album for Download
Now you can download an album containing spaces for every DLE precanceled stamp known. Double Line Electro devices were electroplates used to precancel sheets of stamps. They are a popular sub-category of local precancels which were used at the local post offices.
Double Line Electro Precancel Album (2021) for Hinges:
Double Line Electro Precancel Album (2021) for Mounts:
Free Classic Precancel Albums for Download
Now you can download an album containing spaces for every precanceled stamp issued before 1908. There are two types of albums available for download via the links below, depending on collecting interest.
- Classic Precancel Album – Standard : Contains spaces for the 3526 listings in the catalog up to a value of $100. It might be possible for a normal collector to complete this collection!
- Classic Precancel Album – Advanced : Contains spaces for all 4602 listings in the catalog including unverified items and world-class rarities.
Free Washington-Franklin Precancel Albums for Download
Now you can download an album containing spaces for every precanceled stamp issued from 1908-1921. There are two types of albums available for download via the links below, depending on collecting interest.
- Washington-Franklin Precancel Album – Compact : Contains spaces for the Definitives only, in a compact format. Best suited for intermediate collector.
- Washington-Franklin Precancel Album – Advanced : Contains spaces for the full catalog with all issues, and extra vertical space after each type to allow mounting varieties, especially for the handstamp types. Best suited for large collections.
Free Michigan State Album (2022) for Download
This album is the first comprehensive album of Michigan state precancels, based on a prominent precancel collector’s virtually complete collection. 38,857 spaces are provided with descriptive labels and proper stamp sizes for all definitives, commemoratives, air posts, postage dues, parcel posts, and documentary revenues. It is 1,357 pages long, so print it in small chunks! The PDF is 2.6 MB so it is easily downloaded.
This album is not a database, but like all PDFs, can be searched with the Find command. The album was created from the companion PSS Michigan State Database (2022) for use with PSS Computer Program for Windows, that you can order from PSS Publications HERE. The complete Michigan Catalog of Precanceled Stamps (2022) text catalog is also available in PDF format (only) on the PSS Publications page HERE.
If the album opens to the first page when you click on the link, click on the “Save As” command under the File menu and save it to your computer.
Free Printed Dated Type Album for Download
The Precancel Stamp Society (PSS) is pleased to provide another free set of album pages——Printed Dated Precancel Type Album. These pages exactly match the PSS Printed Dated Control Type Precancel Catalog (2019) and PSS Printed Dated Control Database for use with PSS Computer Program for Windows (2019).
There is space for a printed dated precancel type from every town. There are spaces for the 641 recognized items and additional spaces for 7 pages of varieties. It also includes 4 pages with blank spaces for any additional items that you may want to include. The pages have been formatted with an attractive border and offset for hole punching on the left side. A box is shown for each type from each town, and all the types from each town are grouped together.
The official PSS type designations for printed dated controls are shown below the boxes. Inside each box is an image of the dated control or you can obtain the PSS Printed Dated Type Precancel Catalog, which is described at the end of this article and which includes prices and detailed information for each type. We recommend experimenting and only printing several pages just to make sure that your printer is set up correctly.
There are many small differences in the way printers produce a page, and you may want to slightly reduce the pages by perhaps 2% if the page borders are clipped. Similarly, some three-hole punches are overly aggressive and place the holes too close to the left border. So it is worthwhile to experiment a bit.
To distinguish the Printed Dated types and determine the prices, you will need the PSS Printed Dated Type Precancel Catalog, that you can order in paper or pdf form from PSS Publications HERE.
If you would like the PSS Printed Dated Control Database, you can order from PSS Publications HERE.
PSS Printed Dated Type Precancel Album (03/2021 Update):
Free Spreadsheet of Dated Precancel Company Acronyms/Names
As noted in the July 2013 PSS Forum, linked below is an Excel spreadsheet of dated precancel company acronyms/names. There is duplication as many companies had more than one variation in either the initials, be it font, a space, a period, comma, upper/lower case etc. and of course existed in more than one city. Hence in the acronym column you will find a trailing 2, 3, 4… That means a variation of some sort exists for the same company in the same city.
Requires Microsoft Excel or other spreadsheet program like Numbers on iOS or Google Sheets.PDF Version of Dated Precancel Company Names
Checklist of Chicago Handstamp Dated Precancels used by Sears (SRC), 1938-1991
As noted in the April 2016 PSS Forum, linked below is a pdf format Checklist for Chicago SRC (Sears) Handstamp Dateds compiled by Jim Hirstein and Carl Moore.
Free Printed Dated Precancel News (PDPN) Album for Download
The Precancel Stamp Society (PSS) is providing another free set of album pages——Printed Dated Precancel News (PDPN) Album. These pages contain entries, in chronological order for all of the stamps used on the PDPN mailings from 1957 until 1973.
There is space for a printed dated precancel or integral type set for each stamp used. There are spaces for the 306 different items, including some varieties. The pages have been formatted with an attractive border and offset for hole punching on the left side. A box is shown for each type from each town, and all the types for each date are grouped together.
Inside each box is information about the dated control or integral type set used. You can obtain the PSS Printed Dated Type Precancel Catalog, which is described at the end of this article and which includes prices and detailed information for each type. There is also a companion PDPN database that goes along with the album pages and can serve as a checklist and includes images of the different types.
We recommend experimenting and only printing several pages just to make sure that your printer is set up correctly. There are many small differences in the way printers produce a page, and you may want to slightly reduce the pages by perhaps 2% if the page borders are clipped. Similarly, some three-hole punches are overly aggressive and place the holes too close to the left border. So it is worthwhile to experiment a bit.
To distinguish the Printed Dated types and determine the prices, you may need the PSS Printed Dated Type Precancel Catalog, which you can order from PSS Catalogs HERE.
The PSS Printed Dated Precancel News (PDPN) database can be ordered from PSS Catalogs HERE.
PSS Printed Dated Precancel News (PDPN) Album (08/2017 Update):
Free Album Pages for Collecting US Precancels by Issue
Compact album pages for almost all issues of interest to precancel collectors such as classics, Washington-Franklins, 1922-26s, Prexies, Liberties, Great Americans, Transportation Coils, Air Posts, Postage Dues, Parcel Posts and more. Each page has a title “field” you can fill in to identify whether the page is a specific town & type, or a town , or a state, or anything at all (i.e. synoptic). See the associated article in the March 2020 Forum for more information.
Please enter your name and email address to receive a ZIP file download link email, and get update notifications when the pages are revised.
Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader: 