Printed Cancels by the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railroad?

A corresponding collector in Minnesota sent me examples of cancellations, possibly printed, by the Duluth, Missabe, & Iron Range Railroad, a railroad organized to transport iron ore and eventually taconite out of the Minnesota iron range to port facilities on Lake Superior at Duluth, Minnesota.  I was immediately interested in these, as examples of these cancels don't appear in Richard Fullerton's catalog, and the DM&IRR was not a part of any of the families of railroads known to use printed cancels.  

At first glance the cancels on the three stamps collectively make it appear that we could have printed cancels, as the cancels are all roughly in the same place on the stamps.  But with a bit of scrutiny it seemed that the cancels might even be complete fakes.  First, it seems likely they were not printed, as the cancels appear at differing angles on each stamp.  Second, the stamps indicate no sign of legitimate use, with dates or handstamps or normal manuscript cancelling.  Third, the ink has run and blurred across all the stamps.  The AMEX printed cancels show this blurred quality for stamps cancelled with older plates, but there is no evidence anywhere that the DM&IRRR cancelled enough stamps to wear out their cancelling devices.  

It appears to me that the maker of the cancels used a pile of cheap stamps - a 1c stamp, a pencil canceled 2c with a slight tear, and 25c with cut cancels, to add handstamp cancels.

It appears that at best we have philatelic mischief, or at worst fraud, committed sometime after 1937.

A little research showed that the DM&IRR was organized and so named in 1937, 35 years after the 1898 tax period expired.  On July 1, 1937, the Duluth, Missabe and Northern Ry (DM&N) and the Spirit Lake Transfer Railway were merged to form the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway.  There is a reference called “History of the Missabe” published by the Missabe Railroad Historical Society that goes into this merger and the creation of the DM&IRR.

To cross check it, I went to a contemporaneous reference, the Poor’s Manual of Railroads (image below) from 1901, that lists all US Class I, II, III railroads.  There is no DM&IRR in the manual, but there are the Duluth & Iron Range RR, and the Duluth, Missabe & Northern Ry.

The mischief maker didn’t even bother to create fake cancels for a real, existing railroad during the time of the 1898 tax period.  At least we know that the fakes were made after 1937.  But that’s about all.  Whatever the case, these are an interesting philatelic story.  The collector that sent these stamps to me reported that he had seen a stamp with these cancels sold in an auction a few years ago.  While he did not win that auction lot, he did buy examples of these cancels from a collection located in Walnut Grove, Minnesota sometime in the last few years.  Buyer beware!