1c 1851 Plate 1-Early Stamps

Not that Tex doesn't know this but it pays to mind your cancels when plating. That particular cancel in black is an indicator of a late usage. It could be helpful to also observe the paper characteristics as I've mentioned before.

Good point Winston.

Use anything you can to get a date range of use that intersects when a particular plate was in use.

Plate 1E was July 1 1851 until about end of May 1852.
Plate 2 Dec 55 through 1857.
Plate 3 1856 - 1857.

Many cancels are distinct to the 1851 or 52 timeframe.
Such a use would eliminate Pl 2/3. (New York Slug for example)

When I first looked at that strip I knew I knew that Philly cancel, but I just couldn't remember when it was used. After Winston's post I now recall a 56 or 57 use of it that I used to have. Note that a late use doesn't eliminate 1E but it's much less likely.

16L2 showing side margins from s/3.

njs - Hi and Thanks. That's a really good reference to show the short right side ornaments.

How about this one?
Thank you in advance.
And sorry, if this does not belong here. I still study. Thank you for your patience.

My apologies, tried to upload the exact picture as I have, but here it goes rotated. In addition, was not allowed to delete the second entry.

Scott #24.

Thank you, sinclair2010 ))

Aurora, the scratches along the right side of the design are definitive for identifying your stamp as #24. More specifically, the pattern of the scratches identify it as being from Relief C (there are six reliefs, A-F, that produced #24). They come from plates 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

Thank you,Dudley! ))

Here is a printed circular with what I've identified as position 82L1E. The circular is dated July 1852 and the cover is postmarked with a nice crisp Westboro Mass./Aug 18 CDS (August 1852, therefore). For those who are better versed in postal history than I: Is this not quite a late use of a Plate 1 Early One-Cent 1851 stamp?

dudley - nice cover.

Its definitely out of period, although not by a lot, and it depends on how one defines 'period'. See below for my definition.

All dates 1852 -

The EKU for Plate 1L is June 5, but 1L stamps took awhile to get well rolled out. As a result, they are very scarce in June and July.

In August, you start seeing them (1L) much more en masse.

As one might expect, the curve for 1E stamps is inverse to that.
I have a May 30 (or 31st? I forget), which I consider to be basically the end of in-period for 1E.

June and July could be thought of as transitional months with 1E usages trailing off to almost none after July.

So, to summarize - broadly, and rounding to month boundaries -

1E exclusive period - Jul 51 - May 52
1E+1L Transition - Jun-Jul 52
1L predominance - Aug 52 +

So yes, your cover is unusual, but not super late nor super rare.
It is, nonetheless, nice and interesting. Late, out of period usages of all sorts of stamps show up. They matter a lot when they have been demonitized, otherwise, they are usually curiosities. Certainly interesting.

Sometime I will try to remember to post my late May 1E cover and early August 1L cover.

Your cover also provides another really good example of why a printed circular -- if it only had a killer and not a dated CDS (which yours has), is not proof of a specific date of mailing.

Your circular could have just had some grid killer only, to obliterate the stamp. Then we could have been celebrating a July usage! Or could we? Obviously not provable.

Circular mail often got mailed after, to well after the date on the circular. Dated circulars are still very useful, however, in hammering down a likely year, or general time frame of mailing - but not a specific day.

An interesting discussion about Pos 13R1E may be found here:

http://goscf.com/t/68958