Fancy Cancels

United States Fancy Cancels are among the most easily faked of any philatelic specialty. Throughout the Nineteenth Century, the United States maintained thousands of post offices. Most postmasters were part timers, merchants who added a small postal counter and mail services to attract traffic to their general store. The United States Post Office required that stamps be cancelled but did not provide cancelling devices to the smaller post offices. Some postmasters ordered steel cancelling devices from manufacturers but most either pen cancelled their letters or made their own cancelling devices out of cork. The more artistic postmasters carved what we call fancy cancels-figures and shapes that can add a whimsical interest to United States stamp collecting. This is where the trouble begins. Every generation some bonehead gets the idea that fancy cancels are easy to make (they are-that’s the point) and begins to manufacture his own for the collecting public. In the old days, students put together lists of which towns certain cancels were known from so forgers had to constrain their imaginations and limit themselves to known designs from known towns. Today, with scanning technology forged fancy cancels have exploded and present a real problem. Years ago we decided that we wouldn’t sell US fancy cancels because there were too many good counterfeits and even the so called certified ones didn’t look right to us. We think we made the right decision.