The common three-cent red of 1861 (#65) is a collector’s dream. 1.75 billion copies of the stamp were issued. In quantity, the collector can buy them at under a quarter a piece. This is the most popularly collected specialized stamp in American philately, and one of the most fascinating ways to specialize in it is to collect “fancy cancellations.” In the 1860s, the dictate came down from the postal authorities that each stamp on a letter had to be canceled with a separate canceling device that did not contain the town name and date. The town name and date, or circle date stamp (CDS), as philatelists call it, still had to be struck on the letter, but another cancellation had to be used as well to cancel the stamp. The reason given for this new postal regulation was that the CDS was usually indistinct when impressed upon a stamp, thus making an imperfect cancellation. A canceller that is used just to cancel the stamp is called a “killer,” and it was up to the postmasters to provide these for themselves. The postmasters could cancel the stamps in any way they wanted. More imaginative postmasters carved their cancellers out of wood or cork; hearts, flowers, heads, or just about anything can be seen on these stamps. Fancy cancels began to die out about 1890 as the efficiencies of machine canceling came in.
