No silly, not that kind of cancellation… revenue cancels! 😉

Time for another stamp show travelogue. Today’s destination: INDYPEX.

I rolled out of bed grumbling and growling at 5:15AM; my intermittent insomnia had decided to act up and I had only gotten an hour and a half of sleep before my alwarm thwacked me… it was going to be a long [CENSORED] day.

Well armed with two XL travel mugs of freshly ground coffee, I hit the road at 6:15AM. The show being in a different time zone meant having to leave an hour earlier than normal in order to get there by the time the show opened. Luckily the weather was nice and clear, albeit a bit brisk at 50 degrees, for the 2.25 hour drive. I got to the show about 25 minutes before it opened. There weren’t any other attendees waiting to get in (even by 10 there were only about 15 people total, a somewhat disappointing turnout; in past years the group of “waiters” was considerably larger), so I chatted with some of the dealers as they came in and out to get donuts, some telling me that they had brought material on the want list I had mailed out 2 weeks prior to the show.

I found out that 2023 is the last year for INDYPEX at the current venue (not sure why the change; while I am a club member I don’t get to the meetings). Next year the show is moving west to Danville, Indiana. Nice for me, as it shaves off about 35 minutes from my drive.

The show opened promptly at 10 and we were off to the races. As usual, my first stop was Denny Peoples, where I perused the material he had set aside for me over the past 3 months… not very much actually. I did pick up a lovely 1868 indenture with a $15 First Issue revenue affixed (Scott #R97c), a stamp that while not crazy expensive ($300 in Scott), is seen on far fewer documents than one would expect. I’ve only seen a handful. I also made an impulse buy on a box lot of U.S. telegraph mmiscellany (stamps, booklets, covers, advertising, letters, telegrams, other ephemera) just because it piqued my curiosity.

Next it was off to Odds N Ends Stamps, out of Thorndale PA. I had last seen them in 2021. They were supposed to have attended last year, but the principle owner, Fred Gesser, had taken ill and been hospitalized immediately prior to Indypex 2022. Sadly, he never recovered and passed away in April of this year. His wife Kathy is now staffing the table and this was her first show since his death. She said that several dealers have offered to buy out various portions of the inventory, but she’s not sure how she wants to proceed. She’s going to give it a go and see how things transpire. Based upon how she talked about Fred and her emotions in the moment, it’s clear to me that she loved him dearly and his passing has impacted her heavily. I bought a few revenue documents and some CDVs.

Mark @ Sterling Stamps had told me that he brought something along for me, so I swung by and purchased a lovely illegal usage of a 2c Blackjack on a billhead at a very attractive price.

From Kevin @ Rasdale Stamps I was surprised to find a MNH block of four of Scott #RD58 (stock transfer, $5 Liberty, dark blue, with SERIES 1940 overprint), a stamp you don’t frequently see in multiples, let alone MNH! The catalog value is $460 as 4 hinged singles… neither multiples nor NH are valued in Scott.

Terry Kurzinski didn’t have much for me, but I bought a stack of early 20th century voting proxy postcards with revenues affixed, for a price I couldn’t say no to.

I stopped by and said hello to Xian @ Goldpath, Inc. I typically don’t have time to wade through the mountains of $1 covers he brings, but I may make the time at Chicagopex (I found some really neat stuff in the cover piles at Jerry Koepp’s table last year at Chicagopex when I was looking to kill time late in the show… it’s a good way to fill the itch without spending gobs of money). Shaun said “no revenues” as he usually does, but then caught himself and said that he had spotted “something like revenues” earlier. He dug around and came up with a handful of 1920s toy faux stock certificates that had some neat imagery of the time… for a buck each, how could I say no?

I swung back around to Odds N Ends to look at the non-revenue material “just in case” and spotted some Large Priority Mail Box world miscellany lots. I looked through two of them and spotted several glassines of U.S. revenue stamps, including a large wad of Beer Stamps (Scott REA series), presumably the cheapest types, but still. I’ve run out of revenue kiloware to make up eBay packets for a while now, so I made Kathy an offer on the remaining box lots and a few “junk” revenue lots that were in the collection boxes. I figure I can hunt through them for cancels and plate varieties, all the while building up the packet stash.

From Scott Couch @ Tiger Collectibles I purchased a number of lovely 19th century billheads, several with companion advertising envelopes and other related ephemera.

I ended up back at Denny’s table just before show closing, where I picked up an interesting Proprietary Medicine cancel still on original complete product box, and a really neat oversized billhead that was also an advertising sheet; great imagery. I also overspent on a Civil War-era stamped stock certificate from the Great Western Telegraph Company. I don’t have any other stamped telegraph-related stock certs.

So, weary and broke, I said my goodbyes and hit the road for the long drive home… but hey, at least I gained an hour! 😀

Taking this outside the above timeline, as it was the highlight of my day, and where I spent about 3 straight hours (not to mention the overwhelming majority of my budget)… and also the reason for the thread title: Eric Scott @ The Stamp Shop had told me in the morning, as I was waiting to get in, that he had a lot of new revenue cancel material since I last saw him early in the year. It took me a while to get around to his table, as even though I initially started collecting revenues as a cancel specialist, I’ve really migrated away from that over the last several years, focusing now on documents and plate varieties. I still have interest, but it’s no longer my primary focus…

Famous last words.

The material that Eric had worked up came from the same source as the Proprietary Medicine document and ephemera hoard I had purchased from at the Indiana Spring Fair, the estate of a collector who has been dead for almost 10 years now. Subsequent to that show, the widow of the collector revealed to Eric that all these stamps existed, hence there not having been any discussion of its existence at the time.

Talk about a wonderful surprise… 13 counter books of nothing but proprietary cancels on first issue revenues and proprietary stamps (Scott RB series). Sorry Bart, no Match & Medicine stamps. Even still, it was a showcase of anything and everything in that cancel realm. Material I had either never seen before even in Eric Jackson or Richard Friedberg’s inventory, or had only seen in Mike Morrissey’s recently published book on printed proprietary cancels. Moreover, it was in duplication, meaning it would be perfect for the specialist looking to complete every variant of a particular cancel or find examples on as many different stamp types as possible.

All the heavy hitters: Poland’s Magic Powders mortar & pestle, Benton’s Pine Tree Tar Troches (7-8 examples on different stamps), Poland’s White Pine Compound, Walker & Taylor numerous cancel types and examples of each, Hamlin’s Wizard Oil (about 10 examples in various cancel types and on different stamps). Also many of the alphabet typeset cancels that Mike covers in his book that while very scarce, don’t catch my eye the same way these others do.

What was additionally impressive about this collection was the sheer number of 4-cent Playing Cards (Scott #R21c) stamps with various proprietary cancels, which is typically another level of rare. I must have counted 15+ examples throughout. There were also about a half dozen examples of the 6-cent Proprietary (Scott #R31c).

If I had the means, I could easily have spent 5 figures, which to some extent isn’t that difficult when using the pricing in Morrissey’s book, although to be fair, Eric discounted from those prices nicely. Even still, some of the cancels are genuinely rare. Adding to the difficulty is that I am currently lagging several years behind in processing/imaging my revenue acquisitions, so am completely reliant upon memory as to what I already own… eminently fallible!

I had to limit myself to cancels either I *KNEW* I had never seen in person before or ones rare enough that if for some reason I ended up with a duplicate it would be a good problem to have.

I wonder if Mike Morrissey knew this collector, as I saw items that Mike had referenced as “sole reported example” in his articles for The American Revenuer… or also possible these could be second known examples. Either way, not bad material.

I know that Eric is planning to attend Chicagopex next month as The American Revenue Association is convening at the show (if you’re an ARA member and you wish to attend the dinner, be sure to RSVP with Eric Jackson ASAP). While Eric Scott does not have a table at the show he is considering leaving the books with one of the dealers who does have a table, so any proprietary cancel specialists take note.

I will try to image some of the more interesting items I picked up in the next month or so… maybe…