Is this a precanceled sheet?

[msgtdavid]

Good question, I'm not sure, but do not think so.

It would help to know what apprx. date this issue was in use for.  Have you ID'd it?

Might be useful to see the reverse side.

My family worked on Terminal Island from 1919 up thru 1980's.  

I wonder if it could have been from the prison.

Don't think it could be from the Naval Station that used to be there.

Wonder maybe from the Navy Ship Yard there, that's where I worked.

A few other businesses it might be from.

DAVID THOMPSON

MSGT/USAF/RETIRED

[lee]

not sure of the date, but it came in a large precaneled colllection.

[pnjstamps]

Possibly. It certainly is not a Bureau precancel which is what most precancel collectors seek out. Instead this was cancelled with a roller cancel which was used to 'pre-cancel' large blocks or cancel large blocks already on parcels. Based on the back of this sheet it looks like it was from a parcel. So, basically you had a parcel coming into a business on Terminal Island that had at least $30 of postage due. The post office either applied a sheet of cancelled postage due stamps or applied the sheet and then used the roller cancel on the parcel. To be absolutely sure what order was used, you would need to look at the perf holes in a few spots where the wavy lines and text are to see if they went through to the paper below, which would indicate the cancel was applied after the sheet was attached to the parcel. Hope this helps.

Joe

[billsey]

It wasn't uncommon for an office doing a lot of postage due to precancel sheets with a roller cancel. It also was normal when affixing large blocks to use the roller cancel, especially on parcels. Sometimes they would group all the dues together for one address and use high value stamps to show payment for the whole stack. Yours looks to me like one of the former two possibilities rather than the latter. If you can see cancellation ink on the backing paper then you know which. If you can't detect any ink then you still have a mystery.

[g2hslm]

Hi all,

Interesting situation.  If the stamp is off paper and is a roller cancel or something similar, you can't tell.  It needs to be on piece to see if you can tell if is in any way tied by the cancel to the paper.  Not a  precancel if not tied.  If it's precancelled and on paper the cancel will stop at the edge of stamp(sheet).  Otherwise I would treat it as just a roller killing the stamp.  I have a number of precancelled covers in my collection but none of the stamps are tied to the cover.  Same would apply to a pen line or crayon line that was used to cancel a sheet waiting to be used as a precancel.

g2hslm

[lee]

Took a couple of scans. just enough of the edge of the parcel to scan.

[jaywild]

Here's a scan of what seems to be a couple places where the cancel goes through to the paper underneath.  It's from the right edge maybe 1/3 the way down.

[lee]

Thanks for all the help guys. I found another spot where it rolled onto the parcel on the top left.  Will take it out of the precanceled collection. thanks, Lee

[msgtdavid]

Hi Again

I should have mentioned before, what you have is not a sheet.

Have you ID'd it?

[lee]

Not yet, still searching for my specialized catalogue in all my clutter.

[billsey]

Looks like a full sheet to me, the initial scan doesn't show the selvedge on the left side but subsequent scans do. It's pretty much got to be J85 since it doesn't look at all like scarlet.

[msgtdavid]

Actually the proper term is pane not sheet.

[lee]

Dave, perhaps we should petition ebay to get rid of the sheets catagory with 62,065 listing and get them to change it to Panes. People like you are the reason I left the stamp board 10 years ago. I'll be back in 10 years to see if anything has changed. In the meantime maybe you should just stay on your Mensa board., Lee

[jaywild]

Lee...

Please continue to visit and pose questions.  For every bridge leading to new knowledge and new friendships there is a troll underneath trying to frighten people away.

You are completely correct in calling your sheet a "sheet".  400-subject sheets were made of stamps that saw a lot of use; it was much more efficient than  printing only 100 at a time.  These sheets were cut up into panes of 100 stamps each.  Each pane had two straight edges where it was separated from the original sheet, thus only two edges bore selvage.

Your sheet has selvage on all sides, therefore it was printed as a single sheet of 100 subjects.