Cork Cancels

Years ago, I had a nice little grouping of cork cancels on Canadian small Queen Victoria. At least, that's what I think they were called. These were killer cancels carved by individual postmasters, often from cork, to use to obliterate the stamp used and they were sometimes quite unique and imaginative. At some point (1880's?) they were more or less forbidden and disappeared. Sadly, so did the collection.
However, I recently ran across a similar cancel on a U.S. stamp of the same period. I had not realized that other countries had the same thing happening during that period of time. Anyone else have these quirky cancels? I am posting the two I found, the really neat heart and the more indistinct asterisk(?).

Backroads, the heart cancel in very nice. Many if the cork cancels were fantastic especially the Waterbury, CT fancy corks.

Backroads: there has to be a story there. What happened to your collection (hoping I'm not being rude)?

Those are called fancy cancels and are very desirable and collectable.

Backroads,
The asterisk marking looks like a fleuron.

Lucky

Cynical Simple story. Back in about 1970, a friend and I opened up a weekend business. Friday night and Saturday we held court in a rented office in a decrepit old building here in Prince George (since burned to the ground) and actually had a great time, meeting lots of new people and just about managing to pay the rent. Our initial stock was our individual collections and, of course, the neat stuff like that and for me, a good collection of admiral issues including mint blocks of lathework (sob) 5 hole OHMS perfs, (whimper)and a selection of hairlines on all values (choke) were sold. Reality and life intruded - children born, job commitments and the knowledge that we could no longer afford to subsidize the business. Jim thought he could continue so I sold out to him (partly for stock which is why I moved to a general collection which I rather neglected for the next decade or so)but he in turn had to sell to another fellow a few years on and he, in turn, went completely belly up when he tried to actually make a living out of it. Specialized stores are a hard go in a small (about 75,000)and isolated city (Prince George is 800 km from anywhere big (800 North of Vancouver, 750 west of Edmonton, 800 northwest of Calgary, 700 east of Prince Rupert and abour 700 south of the Yukon border - lovely place to live but isolated). Anyway, I have several "back in the day" groupings that live on in memory only.

Wow backroads, that is a great story. Is there a book written about it yet? Really now, I am serious. A magazine article maybe?

Puzzler - everyone has an interesting story, don't they? Even a lot of stamps in your collection have stories - at least a lot in mine do - and now I have a captive gallery to occasionally tell them if I think there's an interest. No, there's not a published word except the previous paragraph, but thanks for the comment.

Ah, yes, we are all just characters in a bigger story.

Yes, now you are published online! I am a real book person so find it hard to think of online as actually being published somehow. Although it is.

Backroads: gee, an incredible story and thanks for putting it on. I've said elsewhere here that if you lift the corner of a stamp and look behind it you open a door. Great stuff.

Regarding cork or fancy cancels do a search on "T360". A year or so ago he (I think it was him) had a fantastic thread going on fancy cancels that attracted thousands of hits and it included hearts.

Just read through the archived thread you suggested and it was fascinating. Didn't notice a heart but maybe it was the same guy that did the pumpkin head. Had a thing for seasonal thematics. Thanks for the reference.

Here are a few scans of fancy cork cancels (not mine).

Corry, Pa eagle and shield


Townsend, Wash kicking mule


Waterbury, Conn. Bridgeport fireman


Waterbury, Conn heart with arrow


Waterbury, Conn man smoking pipe


Worchester, Mass shaking hands (post civil war)

Great stuff!! I love them.

Good Grief ! and I thought my Guatemala star, bulls eye and large numeral cancels were something !!

Fancy cancels are not only highly collectable but also increasing in value. The cover below is a strip of three Scott 112 with 12 diamond rosette Waterbury, Ct cancels. In Dec., 2006 it sold for $35,000.

If you are interested in seeing more of such cancels/covers, I found this link quite interesting, although the information is geared exclusively toward those used at Worcester, Massachusetts. It still offers some interesting photos of cancels I have never seen before. (Follow the link halfway down to get to the various sections):

http://bob.trachimowicz.org/