Herringbone cancel

A herringbone cancel is a type of patterned cut cancel, found on US revenue stamps. It can be heavy and quite damaging or so lightly done that one could think a stamp was mint. It can be used alone or with a handstamp or handwritten cancel or date besides.

Such cut cancels reduce the normal value considerably, but allow collectors on a budget to obtain scarce stamps that they could not buy otherwise.

[[Category:H]]