To be or not to be : CTO - The disputable ones 06 c

As a final post on the 'disputable' cancelations on the early Japanese stamps, some examples of non-postal and postal cancellations:

On the right hand side, we already see the non-postal cancel (see previous posts)
The left hand side stamp shows a cancel with a double ring.
The centre isn't empty as we see with telegraph cancels.
This usually means it's a postal cancellation

postal and non-postal cancel

On the right hand side, again a non-postal cancel.
The first stamp shows TOK(YO) although the cancel is incomplete, and it might be a forgery, it gives the impression of being a postally used cancel.

postal and non-postal cancel

Same story with the 5 rin stamp:
On the right hand side the typical non-postal cancel,
On the right hand side again a clean date 'AUG 25' which gives the impression of being a postal cancel - still a poor cancel to be 100% sure it's a genuine postal cancel.

postal and non-postal cancel

The stamps above gives a better impression:
Left a postally used stamp, with a clear cancelation 'YOKOHAMA'
Right, the typical non-postal cancel

postal and non-postal cancel

Finally two nice examples of postal cancels - and again the non-postal cancel next to it.

Happy hunting, if you start reviewing your (early) stamps of Japan.

To be or not to be : CTO - The disputable ones 06 b

In the previous post, I showed some telegraph cancels on regular stamps.
Those cancels are not the only disputable cancels.
Also telephone cancels and revenue cancels were used to cancel regular stamps.
According the Michel-catalogue (and that's the best I found so far), there are 4 types of cancels to beware of.

4 types of non-postal cancels - old Japan

The first type I described in my previous article.
Now some examples of the other types:
Easy to recognise cancels

second type of non-postal cancel

second type of non-postal cancel

The last two types are also easy to recognise, but there's one important notice:
We can easily see the date (Japanese Era) on the cancel, and yet it's not a postal cancellation.
For postal cancellations also have an indication of time (hours).
On the purple stamp it's easy to see that this indication is missing.
The blue stamp in incoplete, so we're not sure.

(non)-postal cancels

The same type of cancels as the those above, but now with indication of time (hours) are postal cancellations.
Important to know is that Michel and Scott gives them a value 5 times higher then the non-postal cancels. (= 1/5 of the catalogue prices)

postal cancels

to be continued ...

To be or not to be : CTO - The disputable ones 06 a

I have wrote a lot on CTO stamps in the past articles.
From easy to recognise CTO cancels, over the harder ones.
This - for now - last part is about disputable cancels.

The cancels in this article are not really CTO cancels, but they are no postal cancellations either.
They are not fake, but the cancels on the stamps were not for postal use.
This means, those stamps weren't used as post stamps, or at least the cancel tells us that.
In that way, they fit the same definition as some CTO cancelled stamps...
The stamps are made unusable (cancelled) but not for postal trafic.

Let me give some examples:

Two beautiful Japanese stamps from the so-called UPU-Koban series (1883).

Scott catalogue mention shortly that those stamps can be found with "telegraph or telephone office cancels" and "sell at considerable lower prices then the postally used copies"...
The beauties above are such cancels.
Scott doesn't helps us further then the quotes lines above.
The French "Yvert" catalogue doesn't help us either, and even the (Japanese) Sakura catalogue fails to help me.

I had to search in the German "Michel" to find a picture of what was meant.

non postal cancels - old Japan

This might look like Japanese to most of you, and ... indeed it is.
The first cancel is a telegraph cancel.

telegraph stamps with telegraph cancels

The first type of these cancels is eay to recognise : an outer circle with japanese inscriptions, and an inner circle that remains empty.

post stamp with telegraph cancel

In the picture above, we see a regular stamp (1883) with a telegrap cancel.

to be continued ...

Collecting : My collection 04 f

Some examples of how the la Gasse-meter works :

Some examples of the stamps I tested:

1. Make sure the stamp is exactly in the middle of the central square:

full scan

2. Make sure the overlay is exactly in the position of the cancel

scan in detail

3. Result : 150
This is a very good cancel indeed; 150% of the value

the box indicates : 150

Another example:

1. Placing the stamp:

full scan

2. Placing the overlay:
Here, the cancel is bigger then the overlay indicator,
so you'll have to find the center of the cancel.

scan in detail

3. Reading the scale:

scale : 150

The scale indicates a 150%, but the cancel isn't clear enough to reach that percentage.
Altough it's very well centred, due to the lightness of the cancel, the value is lower.
So certainly a 'downgrade' to me.

Last example:

1. Here I placed a larger stamp on the A-sheet.
The hight is larger than the width, so we have to adjust the hight when placing the stamp.
If the stamp is wider than its hight, we have to adjust the width of course.

full scan

2. Placing the overlay:

adjusting the stamp to the compass, and the 2nd compass to the stamp

3. The result:

aww, only 40

With small 'classic' stamps, the value would be 40%, but as this stamp is larger, it's in fact a very good cancel too, as we can see the full name of the city (here : Bucureci - Bucarest) and the full date of cancelation : here Jan. 28, 1914.
Definitively an 'upgrade' to me.

Lesson to be learned.
This is a handy tool but it's not a Bible.

Have fun measuring !

Collecting : My collection 04 e

Now to the serious work...

In order to convince each and everyone of searching for good cancels, a little help.
For long I was searching for an 'instrument' to determinate the quality of a cancelation.
Is there a 'standard' way to determinate whether a cancel is good, very good, or even excellent?
Of course, a lot depends on what kind of feeling you have yourself when looking at a used stamp.

If a cancel was made within an acceptable timeframe after the stamp was issued, then we're on the good way.
A 'black penny' with a year 2010 cancel is out of the question.
Secondly, with very old stamps, and perfect cancellations... always be careful for forgeries.
Better ask a specialist.

For 99% of our collections : this little, but oh so useful instrument :

This 'meter' was developed by the dutchman P. A. la Gasse.
It was meant for determinating the quality of small round cancels on early dutch stamps, but it can be used for any kind of 'classic' stamps.
For modern stamps, large sized stamps or irregular shaped stamps it's also useful, as long as you put the 'to be measured stamp' perfectly in the middle of the A-sheet (as shown below).

La Gasse 'cancelation meter'

How it works : put the stamp in the middle of the compass card.
Make sure it's perfectly in the middle, for bigger stamps, or round stamps for example, put the centre of the stamp exactly in the middle of the page.
(N O Z W = Noord, Oost, Zuid, West, or North, East, South, West)

detail A-sheet la Gasse

Now we need the second sheet of the la Gasse-meter.
This should be printed on a transparent foil, an be put over the first (A)sheet.
The exact size of the sheets doesn't matter too much, as long as A and B sheet are exactly the same size!

La Gasse - sheet B

As the B-sheet is transparant, you can turn the B-sheet, so that the compass equals the cancel.
North of the compass should be north-side of the cancel.
The circles on the compass are to be placed on the cancel and the line west-east become the horizon of the cancel.

La Gasse compass - detail

If you do so, the little box (south of the Z-point) will show a number on the scale, printed on the underneath A-sheet. (scale from 0 to 200)

the box will show the 'value' of the cancel, as indicated in the A-sheet below

The scale in the box gives an upgrade of downgrade of the catalogue value in %
200% doubles the catalogue price, 50% brings it down to half the price.


... to be continued...

Collecting : My collection 04 d

How about the last qualification for used stamps.
In the previous article I wrote about the last of the 3 qualification labels (XYZ) for unused stamps.
For (postally) used stamps, there's also a third category, the Z-factor

Again, the qualification runs from 5 (luxe) to 0 (bad).
As you've seen, I have mentionned postally used stamps and not 'cancelled' stamps.
For obvious reasons, I skipp the 'CTO' (Cancelled to Order) stamps from this list.
As those cancels are ment to be 'luxe' cancels, they aren't always and you can find them in each of the 6 categories.
However, the stamps with CTO cancels were never postally used, so the value -for me- is nill.

Some stamps (old communist countries) are very rare postally used, and even catalogues mention them as 'valuable' - just because there's no other alternative.
Also mass cancelations by certain countries (see previous articles) are mentionned in the catalogue with a limited value.
see : http://rainbowstampsandcoins.blogspot.com/search/label/CTO


The Z-digit:

"5" is the qualification for LUXE cancelations.
The city of cancelation has to be visible and straight up, (max. declination of 10%)
The cancel has to be clear, no ink spots or second cancel on the stamp.
The year has to be visible (and within the time of use of the stamp)
- for 'forever' stamps, a timeframe of +/- 3 years from the date of issue
The cancel has to be completely or nearly completely on the stamp, without damaging the image of the stamp.

Sweden n° 21 - issued November 1918  - cancel Eskilstunar
cancelled 16 April 1919

"4" is for all very good cancels, who miss one (or two) of the above mentionned requirements.
and I have to admit, most of the stamps are like this in my collection... some examples:

Sweden n° 21 - issued 1/7/1872  - cancel Osthammar
no luxe : cancel not sharp

Sweden n° 28 - issued May 1877  - cancel Stockholm
no luxe : declination is 90°

Sweden n° 32 - issued May 1877  - cancel Stockholm
no luxe : cancel 6 years after issuing date

Sweden n° 33 - issued July 1877  - cancel Kristine....
no luxe : cancel incomplete and pale

Sweden n° 33 - issued June 1877  - cancel Stockholm
no luxe : cancel is interrupted by a second cancel

"3" is for all other 'very good' cancels, city and year are (partially visible) and can be deducted.
even up-side-down cancels or late cancels (up to 10 years) are ok.

very good cancels - Sweden 1911

"2" City or date are only partially recognisable and/or multiple cancels

good cancel - Sweden 1918

"1" anything below qualification "2" with somehow a recognisable cancel

poor cancels - Sweden

"0" for meaningless (wavy lines, black spots, advertisement) or tiny cancels

meaningless cancel - Sweden

Some 'classical' stamps (UK, Mexico, US, ...) have cancels without city or date.
This does not mean that those cancels are to be labeled with a "0"
Some of those cancels can be traced by year and/or city of use!

Collecting : My collection 04 c

The last digit in my qualification system...

I told you earlier about the X-factor (perforations), the Y-factor (margins or centering), and now the final and maybe most interesting Z-factor...

For unused stamps we will use it to give a qualification to the gum, for (postally) used stamps, the quality of the cancel.

Let's first talk about unused (MNH) stamps

The Z-digit:

"5" MNH  means Mint, never hinged. *** or ** in catalogues
stamps have the original gum, no spots, no mark of any kind (except an expert's mark - for professionals)

"4" MLH menas Mint, lightly hinged. * in catalogues
The original hinge was removed or a small part remains on the stamp, furtheron no defects to the gum, no spots

"3" MH, Mint and hinged.
The hinge mark is still visible, or is removed but a larger part of the stamp is affected

X Y 5                                        X Y 4                                        X Y 3

 "2" Mint (as in 'unused'), minimum 50% of the original gum is still on the stamp

"1" Mint (unused) less then 50% of the original gum is left on the stamp

"0" MNG (mint no gum) (*) in catalogues
Unused stamps, but no (original) gum left - can be a used stamp without any cancel

X Y 2                                        X Y 1                                        X Y 0

For the qualification of cancelled stamps, see next article ...