Inside Linn’s: The saga of the precanceled U.S. 1970 Christmas stamps

By Charles Snee

The Dec. 2 digital-only issue of Linn’s Stamp News will be available to subscribers Saturday, Nov. 16. While you wait for your issue to arrive in your inbox, enjoy these three quick glimpses of exclusive content available only to subscribers.

The saga of the precanceled U.S. 1970 Christmas stamps

In Modern U.S. Mail, Richard L. Beecher explores the U.S. Post Office Department’s experiments using “precanceled Christmas stamps in an effort to move the mail along with greater efficiency. Those experiments did not come without some bumps in the road.” This month, he takes a close look at the precanceled 1970 Christmas stamps, which were invalid for postage for a time.

Ships set sail on various blog sites

William F. Sharpe, in Computers and Stamps, provides helpful reviews of several blogs focused on ships and watercraft. He opens his column with comments about Prashant Ashar’s Ship Stamp blog site that includes a gallery of ship stamps and his blog archive as well as links to other ship-related blogs, websites and popular posts.

An affordable U.S. 1879 Numeral postage due stamp

Stamp Market Tips columnists Henry Gitner and Rick Miller suggest acquiring the 3¢ brown Numeral postage due stamp (Scott J3). “The simple design featuring the numeral ‘3’ and a decorative frame and scroll is typical of postage due stamps,” Gitner and Miller explain. “The engraved stamps were printed on unwatermarked paper in sheets of 200 by the American Bank Note Co. The sheets were perforated gauge 12 and divided into panes of 100 for distribution.”

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