Saturday, October 26, 2024

A Collector's Guide to 1898 Documentary Printed Precancels: Kahului Railroad Follow-up

The day after posting the Kahului Railroad printed precanceled stamp, a seller on Ebay from Golubie, Poland, listed two stamps that appear to be examples of Kahului Railroad handstamp cancels:



I had noticed some months back that this same seller had listed these stamps, or at least one of them, but I did not save the images of the stamp(s) or any notes about them.  Coincidently the cancels were back online the day after I first posted regarding the apparently printed version of this cancel.

These two stamps further my doubt as to the legitimacy of the R163 "printed precancel".  My guess is that both cancels above were added after the 1898 tax period by a collector or dealer making fantasy cancels.  There are no extraneous markings like dates or location (the state hardly counts), and it is not clear that any railroad needed to cancel a five cent stamp.  Even the I&GNRR five cent stamp cannot be found in a condition than otherwise unused.  

The two cent stamp is hyphen-holed; the five center is rouletted.  My guess is that the maker of these had a foxed five cent stamp, of little value with the foxing, and selected it for the bogus handstamp.  Otherwise, if these were real, it would imply that the KRR was possibly canceling these stamps across the tax period, as the two cent stamp has the later issued hyphen-hole perfs.  If this was so then I am fairly sure we would have examples of these cancels that do a better job of appearing legit.  


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