How Do I Collect Precancels?

by Phil Cayford

Most collectors who become fascinated with precancels start out by collecting everything. A few never stop collecting everything! But most folks soon discover that this becomes overwhelming, and specializing is required.

One of the of the fascinating aspects of local precancels is that they can be collected in dozens of different ways. There are four major parameters which can be used to categorize a collection of locals: Geography, Type of Precancellation, Stamp Issue, and Town Name.

Geography: Collections can be built covering specific states or geographic areas. Many people collect only the Western States, or New England, or only California, etc. If one talks of collecting “Ohio General”, it means they are collecting all denominations of all towns & types from the state of Ohio. They may also collect beyond the basic, including blocks of four, printed dateds, and handstamp dateds, depending on their available time and degree of sanity!

Type of Precancellation: The most popular area in this field is Double Line Electros, although there are many other possibilities. Printed, Mimeos, Typesets, Double Line Handstamps, Integrals, Vinyls, and on and on.

Stamp Issue: There are some very popular issues to build collections of, many with their own catalog: Bicents (1932 Washington Bicentennials), Black Hardings, Apple Greens, Classics (pre-1920), early Classics (pre-1908), Parcel Post, War & Defense, etc.

Town Name: This category contains the most basic area of local collecting: towns. That is, one stamp from each town to issue a precancel. The off-shoot from this is Town & Types (T&T): one stamp of each style of type from each town. Many exotic mini-collections can also be formed in this area, such as 3-letter towns, 4-letter towns, 3 or more word towns, country names, boy/girl names, etc.

Of course one can combine any of the four categories to limit one’s collection as much as desired: such as collecting printed Prexies from states west of the Mississippi. Or Double Line Electro Parcel Posts from Alaska (a null set).