Does a precancel make a stamp used?

Seems to me precanceled stamps can still be unused if the cancellation is placed prior to a stamps use.
Is my logic faulty?

Comments

  • 3 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • The word "cancel" is the key to your answer. A "precancel" is not the same as a stamp with a clean, un marred face. The presence of undisturbed gum makes it "unused", but not synonymous with mint. BUT some collectors love precancels and the cities listed. Just make it your hobby and do what you like.
  • Rene is correct. In addition a permit is required to actually use them, even today.

    Precancels come in two major groups: those cancelled at the Bureau when the stamp is made, and those cancelled locally at the post office. Only larger users who needed more than 500,000 sheet stamps or 250,000 coil stamps could order them from the Bureau.

    Most precancels you find are without gum. This is because at certain times in the past it was illegal to even own them with gum. Many precancel dealers would wash the gum off of any that they did have. This was called "bath-tubbing". This is especially true with Bureau precancels since you had to know someone to get them with gum. Later, walk-in precanceling was allowed by collectors at post offices, so local precancels are pretty common with gum. Most precancel collectors ignore the gum these days, which is one thing some people like.

    In the last 20 years or so, Scott has started listing the unique varieties that only come Bureau precanceled. Some examples are 1058 Wet Printing Coil, Liberty Small hole Coils, and some of the Prominent Americans untagged. These occurred because the tagging step re-used the precancel step on the printing press, so it wasn't possible to do both in one run thru. Also tagging precancels didn't really make sense for who was using them.

    Since Scott has a Mint and Used price, the not entirely correct term of a "Mint Precancel" is now listed in the catalog. More proper would be Unused Precancel, but that isn't really a thing in the catalog. The combination of all of the above leads to some real rarities of Bureau Precancels with Original Gum that have very high prices in Scott. They are deserved in my opinion. Anyway, I'm rambling now.

    https://www.hipstamp.com/store/mnhynes-bureau-precancels
  • Thank you kindly for the clarification.
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