Crazyquilters Japan stamps

[crazyquilter]

I am working on a few glassines of Japan and I can't find these 2 in my Scott Cat or the Sakura. The stamps looked old and a little worn. Are they in bad condition or are they made this way?

[Philatarium]

Hi, Lorna!

Those are B38 & B39.

I can't quite tell from the picture whether or not they're more worn than they ought to be.  They are from the early 1970's, so they're not really that old.

I can show you a scan of some mint ones a little later on if you'd like.

[guyana1230]

Lorna in Sakura they are C619 and C620, 26 March 1973

[crazyquilter]

Thank you Philatarium, guyana1230,
The picture in the Sakura helps me figure out that the stamps are supposed to look old and worn.

[khj]

Philatarium, are those a type of remainder cancel?

[Philatarium]

They are, khj.   When they're squiggly lines that look like they could have been applied as a roller cancel, then that's a remainder cancel.

Japan is one of the few post offices I know that actually make remaindered stamps available after they've been pulled off sale.  (It's easy to not even think of that since, as far as I know, this isn't done here in the US.)

Are there any other postal services that do this?

[guyana1230]

I used to get stamps via a penpal in Japan and many of the envelopes had cancels in those squiggly lines so it isn't always possible to say they are remainders, shame I never kept any of the envelopes

[khj]

If I'm not mistaken, the wavy line postmarks for processed mail is actually not continuous and the spacing is different.

Below, I pilfered my own post from a land far away (interestingly, I just noticed that thread far away also contained Dave's first post there!):

REGARDING REMAINDERS
At various time periods in history, excess Japanese mint stamps were taken off sale after a certain date, canceled and sold in bulk. These are known as "remainder cancels" -- typically seen as 2 broadly spaced continuous wavy lines that run horizontally across the stamp. Do not assume that if it has no gum, then it is a genuine postally used cancel.

There is, however, a legitimate wavy line cancel, but it is not continuous, is usually slightly off-axis from horizontal, and you typically can see part of a circular date cancel somewhere on the stamp.

[crazyquilter]

Very cool info Philatarium , and khj,     I will have to check my other Japan stamps now.

[crazyquilter]

I wonder if there are people who only collect Japan stamps that used in the mail. I will have to look in the catalogue if they write any info about remainder cancels and values.

[khj]

Scott does not price the remainder cancels for Japan.

Remainder cancels are like CTO's, and in general have a lower retail value than postally used stamps.

Of course, there are some exceptions. There are some rare remainder/CTO cancels that have been identified/documented and retail for significantly higher than the very common postally used examples -- off the top of my head, Australia for example.

To clarify the above on Japan, remainder cancels on Japan exist in other formats, including an array of boxed parallel lines and rectangles. For other countries, remainder cancels include continuous parallel thick bars/box-arrays, "X", hole punches, barred ovals/diamonds, and the typical circular cancels (often without date, but sometimes with year).

There are, of course, remainder cancels that have the normal circular-date cancel. An example is Thule. The remainders can be identified by the specific cancel date (after the stamps were withdrawn from use).

Mar 29, 2016 13:20:39 GMT -5 Philatarium said:

Are there any other postal services that do this?

I assume you mean "still do this". Surprisingly, not many. Korea and Switzerland might still. I don't actively collect most modern stamps, so I'm not sure. But in the early days, a lot of countries would cancel remainders and sell them off.

[Philatarium]

There's nothing in Scott about that, Lorna, except that they finally show an example of a telephone cancel which was used on some definitive stamps up through the 1930's.  (I'm saying all of this from memory, so I could be a bit off on something.)

The telephone cancels actually look like an old rotary phone dial, so it's easy to spot them.  Because they were used to pay telephone & telegraph fees (which were run by the post office), it's much more common to find them, especially the high values, than those that legitimately were used for postal service.  The Scott prices are for postally used.  The telephone cancels are maybe worth about 10% of the postal value.

[Philatarium]

I just saw some full sheets with remainder cancels yesterday in an auction lot.  Now, if I can figure out where I saw it, I'll show what that looks like.

[khj]

Yes, the full pane with remainder cancels can look pretty impressive. Especially the high-value definitives. I've often seen them for Japanese and Korean definitives.

Of course, I still prefer hand-canceled remainders: Leipziger Messe 1948

[Philatarium]

Found 'em!   (I can't believe I was able to drill down well enough to find them.  I looked at a lot of auction lots online yesterday.)

I'll host the images and then show them here.

[Philatarium]

For the Japanese ones, I didn't mean it so much for anything other than maybe it can help collectors shy away from them when possible, or at least know what they're getting.

[Philatarium]

Here's an example of remaindered cancels on Japanese stamps:

I'll start a new thread in order to show the handful of examples I managed to find all in the photos for one auction.

[Philatarium]

And here's that thread:


stampbears.net/thread/4299/japanese-remainder-cancels