Lot
1558 
"Cumberland Me. Mar. 16", printed precancel postmark with manuscript day on unsealed orange buff cover with part-printed address to Deer Isle Me. bearing 1¢ blue (63), light corner crease, well centered with deep rich color, cancelled by matching manuscript "X", prepaid for the 1¢ circular rate, manuscript "1863" dates the cover, includes a misdated March 10th 1860 circular announcing sale of Highway Surveyor's Books and other printed products, Very Fine, ex-James Lee; with clear 1985 P.F. certificate. Estimate $2,000 - 3,000.
Horace I. Gray was a "Card and Job Printer" located in Cumberland, Maine offering a variety of stationery merchandise. All of the known Cumberland precancels are on cover from only two firms, that of Gray himself and the Portland firm of Sanborn & Carter. It is suggested that Gray did the printing for Sanborn & Carter, together with the mailing, thus accounting for the Cumberland precancel on the Portland firm's mail. Five distinct types of the Cumberland precancel are known. Illustrated and discussed in Donald Evans, The United States 1¢ Franklin 1861-67, pg. 139, fig. 8-37.
Realized: $2,700