W301 or U300 cut square UPSS Die 83, darker blue, machine cancel, setoff, EFO

Item Specifics

Country

United States

Catalog Number

W301

Stamp Type

Back of Book (Other) - Wrapper

Condition

Used

Stamp Format

Single

Topic

People - Politicians

Year of Issue

1887

Item Description

38x42mm. This cut square was among thousands of stamps and cut squares collected from businesses at Union City, Indiana in the early 1890s. Most of the readable postmarks in this hoard are from 1891 to 1893. Most of the 11-12,000 cut squares have the two-cent green Washington indicium that the United Postal Stationery Society (UPSS) identifies as Die 88. I have not counted the 1c blue Franklin (mostly UPSS Die 83) cut squares separately, but there are at least a few hundred in the hoard.

This cut square has no watermark. The indicium is a darker blue color on diagonal laid manila paper. The United Postal Stationery Society (UPSS) identifies this as Die 83. The paper is definitely thin, but the UPSS catalog doesn’t list either a thin Die 83 manila envelope paper (usually diagonal laid) or a Die 83 wrapper with diagonal laid paper (usually horizontal laid). The Scott catalog number would be 300 if this is from an envelope or W301 if it is from a wrapper.

The characteristics of the manila paper sometimes led to inking problems. The inking on this example is messy and it is an example of a setoff where the back was inked when the newly printed sheet of paper was placed on top of another sheet of freshly inked Die 83 paper, thereby transferring the ink from the lower sheet to the back side of the sheet above. This characteristic falls under the EFO (errors, freaks and oddities) umbrella.

The stamps in the hoard had been soaked from the envelopes around the time of their collection. The stamps and cut squares were then sorted and tied tightly with string and sewing thread into bundles of 100 each. That process protected most of the items from damage and aging for over a century. I inherited and began unpacking the bundles in 2000. None of these sale items from the hoard has ever been in a collection.

Mail was arriving at Union City from all over the country via three railroads. Much of that mail was from small cities and towns in Indiana and Ohio and to a lesser degree from smaller communities in other nearby states. In other words, most of the fancy and geometric cancels probably originated within 150 to 200 miles of Union City. Numerous communities were using this obliteration design, and the hoard contains hundreds of cut squares with the various types of machine cancels in use during the early 1890s. The origin of this particular cancel is unknown.

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Seller Information

Seller

keesindy (4649)

Registered Since

04/11/2016

Feedback

100%

Store

Stamps from Keesindy

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Item Location

Indiana, United States

Ships To

United States

Shipping Instructions

About 3½ years ago, I stopped selling and shipping outside the US due to new postal rules and rapidly rising costs. The USPS is raising postal rates again in January 2019. Today, December 25, 2018, due to the continuing rise in the cost of postage and associated fees, I am reluctantly raising my general shipping fee for the first time in many years. My sales here at HipStamp involve no additional charge for the purchase of multiple stamps. Shipping is via USPS unless otherwise specified. Be sure to contact me before making your purchases if you have questions.

Returns Accepted

Yes

Returns Policy

All items may be returned unless otherwise stated in the listing. Of course, I cannot be responsible if uninsured items are damaged during shipping. If you are dissatisfied with a purchase, contact me within 7 days of your receipt of the item to make arrangements for returning it. If I have made an error in my listing or the item is not as described, you will receive a full reimbursement plus the pre-agreed-upon cost to return the item.