Pen cancel
Encyclopedia
Philately
Philately is the study of stamps and postal history and other related items. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting, which does not necessarily involve the study of stamps. It is possible to be a philatelist without owning any stamps...
, a pen cancel is a cancellation of a postage
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
or revenue stamp
Revenue stamp
A revenue stamp, tax stamp or fiscal stamp is a adhesive label used to collect taxes or fees on documents, tobacco, alcoholic drinks, drugs and medicines, playing cards, hunting licenses, firearm registration, and many other things...
by the use of a pen, marker or crayon.
Usage
In the early days of stamps, cancellation with a pen was common. Today stamps are almost always cancelled with an inked handstampPostmark
thumb|USS TexasA postmark is a postal marking made on a letter, package, postcard or the like indicating the date and time that the item was delivered into the care of the postal service...
or a machine cancel as this is quicker to apply. Pen cancels are still sometimes seen today when a postal official needs to cancel stamps missed by the automatic cancelling machine.
There are no fixed terms for the different types of pen cancels, but a cancel in the form of two crossed lines has been referred to as an X cancel. Pen cancels may also take the form of notations by the canceller, the city in which the item was posted or the initials of the local postmaster
Postmaster
A postmaster is the head of an individual post office. Postmistress is not used anymore in the United States, as the "master" component of the word refers to a person of authority and has no gender quality...
.
A pen cancel may indicate fiscal (revenue) use; however, in the early days of stamps a pen cancel was sometimes used because no handstamp was available, for instance in Nicaragua where pen cancels were used for seven years after their first stamps appeared in 1862.
Values
A used stamp with a pen cancel is usually worth much less than a stamp cancelled using a handstamp or machine. In particular, the additional information from the handstamp is lost and the pen cancel may indicate fiscalRevenue
In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
(revenue) rather than postal use. Pen cancelling is a common method of cancelling stamps used fiscally. Stamps marked valid for both postage and revenue use are usually worth less when fiscally used.
Tampering
Some people have attempted to remove pen cancels from used stamps in order to make them appear as more valuable mint stampMint stamp
In philately, a mint stamp is a stamp which is in its original state of issue, is unused, has never been mounted and has full gum, if issued with gum. The term applies equally to postage stamps and revenue stamps.- Variations :...
s.