5¢ Red Brown (1), beautiful rich First Printing shade and impression, huge margins to clear at left and slightly in at top, red 7-bar grid precancel at upper left corner, tied by blue grid cancel, matching "Wheeling Va. Feb. 1"(1848) circular datestamp on folded cover to Huntington & Brooks, Cincinnati, Ohio

Very Fine; part of one back panel missing, splits along folds and slightly toned.

USPCS census no. 14210 (date shown as 2/8/1848).

Ex Rep. Ernest R. Ackerman (sold privately through Perry); Wharton Sinkler, Eugene Klein sale, 3/8/1940, lot 47; and John R. Boker, Jr. (collection sold privately to Mr. Gross, 1994).

HISTORY AND COMMENTARY

The Wheeling Red Grid Precancellation

The post office in Wheeling, Virginia (later West Virginia), received its first supply of 1847 stamps on August 8, 1847--1,200 5¢ and 400 10¢--and soon after applied a red 7-bar grid to the center of blocks of four before or at the time the stamps were sold. We do not know if the red grids were struck on all 25 blocks in a pane of 100 stamps, or if they were applied to smaller units, but all of the known examples have the red grid in one corner of the stamp (see image at left).

Since most of the recorded examples with the red grid are additionally cancelled, some experts have been reluctant to define them as precancellations, which are usually not cancelled again. However, one of the recorded 5¢ covers has a precancelled stamp without any other cancel (number 1 below), and a piece with a 5¢ has the stamp tied by the Wheeling November 6 (1847) circular datestamp, without any other cancel (Siegel Sale 203, lot 123). Whether the grid was applied as a control mark, as some have suggested, or for reasons that qualify it as a precancel, is a technical point for specialists to debate. Everyone agrees that the Wheeling grid is unique in the manner in which it was applied to the 1847 Issue.

There are seven recorded covers with the Wheeling grid precancel, including three 5¢ and four 10¢ covers. They are listed at bottom (bold entries are offered in this sale):

The USPCS census no. 14211 is a duplicate of number 3 on the above list with an incorrect date of 2/27/1848.

Numbers 4 and 7, the 10¢ covers to Hallowell, were found together and first appeared at auction in Franklin Stamp Co. Sale 34, 6/25/1920, as lots 14 and 15.

The 10¢ cover to Owen & Hurlbut offered here was part of a correspondence discovered in the 1930s and reported to have been sold through Percy Doane. On the occasions this cover has been offered, it has been described as the finest known. Since two of the 10¢ covers have stamps with creases (numbers 4 and 6), and the third has a manuscript cancel (number 7), it is more than a matter of opinion that the 10¢ cover in the Gross collection is the finest of the four known. It has graced the collections formed by Stephen D. Brown, Karl Burroughs, Creighton C. Hart and John R. Boker, Jr.

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