I’ve started several threads in the “United States - Covers & Postmarks” and in the “United States - BOB & Other” sections relating to my hoard of 11-12,000 1890s cut squares from Union City, Indiana. I also commented on my experience with these cut squares in rrr’s thread about “Allergies and stamps.”

I have always regretted not taking photos of the hoard before I started working with it. In particular, I wish I had photos of some of the postage stamp and cut square bundles that were tightly bound with either cotton string or sewing thread. Each bundle contained 100 stamps or cut squares. Of the handful that I actually counted, the number was exact, and I suspect that would have been the case for each bundle if had I bothered to count each as I unbundled them. That was back in 2000.

When Dad found this hoard around 1960, it was part of a far larger bunch of philatelic material in a very old heavy wooden crate. It looked as though it had been stored in a barn or shed for several decades. Dad stored it in his attic for another four decades. Fortunately, it all stayed dry! Although the cut square bundles were in flimsy cardboard boxes, the storage environment wasn’t very clean and those cut squares on the top and bottom of each bundle were filthy and marked with indentations from the string and thread. They were worthless and I thought I had discarded all of them. I regretted not having any photos of the bundles. Well, much to my surprise, I’ve discovered a pair of those cut squares that were at the top of two of the bundles. They are easy to identify! They’re pictured here.



You can see an indentation at the middle of each of the four sides of these two examples. Plus, you can see the vertical indentation that runs the full length of each. These indentations were left by the string or thread that bound the cut square bundles. I’m guessing there is no horizontal indentation across these two examples because the vertical thread or string was wrapped around the bundles first, followed by the horizontal wrapping. As I’ve noted before, I believe the bundling was done at the time of collection in the early 1890s. Otherwise, I doubt the cut squares in each bundle would be so clean and well preserved.

The indentations show how tightly the bundles were bound. The relatively clean back sides of these two examples demonstrate why the vast majority of the cut squares in each bundle were so well preserved. They were not exposed to the elements. However, as I demonstrated in my post, “The rarest example of the very common U311 UPSS Die 88?”, the material wasn’t protected from rodents. In fact, the missing corner of the second of these two cut squares may be due to a curious rodent, but that possibility is not as obvious as the example presented in the “rarest example” post.

Whoever took the time to bundle and then preserve this material, did future collectors of fancy cancels, postal history and cut squares a huge favor.