Page 7 - Demo

..Because a city or town had its name on its own precancels, it is obvious where that stamp came from. The different Bureau Type plates are fairly easily to distinguish one from another. However it is not so easy to pick out the differences between L o c a l Type printing-plates. In general, they can vary by font style, as well as the weight of the lines and the line spacing. But it gets complicated very quickly. Fonts can easily vary between serif and sans-serif, but the letters can be taller or wider, more bold or less bold, widely spaced or more narrowly spaced. The town%u2019s name and the state%u2019s name are generally above and below each other, but the separation between them can vary%u2014and to collectors, a millimeter can be very important, because it will differentiate one Local Type of precancel from another.The horizontal lines or bars, that are required above and below the city and state name, are another area for variation. Those that were printed continuously across an entire sheet of stamps, so they run off the edge of each individual stamp, are referred to as lines. When they are narrower than the stamp, they are referred to as bars. They can also be fatter or thinner in particular precancel types, and the distance between them can vary. Or they can consist of a pair of thin double lines. And there can be more, or less, white space between the bars (or lines) and the lettering.Most Local Types of precancels are oriented the same as the postage stamp, but some are inverted, or they may be turned 90 degrees from the orientation of the stamp. Or they can be at an angle to the stamp%u2019s orientation. There are also minor variations, errors, and counterfeits, all of which are of interest to serious collectors. Dick Laetsch told me that distinguishing between precancel plate types can be like learning a foreign language.It is has been estimated that approximately 20,000 different cities and towns have produced L o c a l Type precanceled stamps, and they used over 40,000 different printing-plate types. When all the various issues and denominations of stamps are factored in, the total number of possibilities for different precancels in the United States would rise into the millions. Before I began this collection, I knew very little about precanceled postage stamps. But as I educated myself, I realized they were much more than a tribute to the junk mail that most of them were used on. So, I decided to start this collection of precanceled stamps from my home state of Indiana. From the beginning, I knew that this collection would consist of both Bureau Types and Local Types, but it would not be a comprehensive General Collection, containing all the possible stamp issues and denominations. Rather, it would consist of a well-rounded sampling of all the varieties of Indiana precancels%u2014in other words, a representative General Collection. For some cities, generally the ones with smaller populations, I have collected a single stamp showing a single precancel type. For larger cities, there are generally examples of multiple precancel types, often on several different stamp issues and denominations, occasionally I have collected nearly complete sets. The 1922-1932 regular-issue postage stamps were produced at different times with three different perforations (perf 11, perf 10, and perf 11x10%u00bd), using two different letterpress-printing processes (flat-plate and rotary plate). Some people collect precancels of all such variations, as well as variations of coil stamps, but I have not. Instead, I have combined different perforations under one Type for issues from these years. So, for example, where this collection displays a group of stamps from the 1922-1932 series under a single L o c a l Type, they may not all have the same perforations. In a similar vein, I have not attempted to collect both coil stamps and stamps from sheets, and I have regularly inserted a coil stamp into a Poster stamp sponsored by the Hoosier Precancel Stamp Club for the 1933 PSS national convention in Indianapolis. Poster stamp sponsored by the Illiana Precancel Stamp Club for the 1985 PSS national convention in Vincennes.