Perforated 1¢ Bisect On Cover Postaly Used?

Just noticed the "No 1/2 c stamps" typewritten note. If the cover has been altered, this would have to have been added. So does it "match" the typewritten address?
Not much to go on , as few of the letters in the address are also in the note, but what about hte lowercase "a"?

The PF has certified one Scott 614 bisect on cover, albeit from Toms River, NJ in August 1925 and with a clean cut vice perfs(Certificate number 420996).

This note is from the EFO Collector's Club website:

These 20th century bisects are definitely contrived, created by collectors for collectors. The 11/2 cent third class rate at the time made it easy to do, and with so large a volume of mail made it fairly likely to get through.

Let's throw cover I located on ebay this into the mix:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-1cent-Wa...em3379bd9ec9




I am going to change my tune and say that these covers are not contrived but fully genuine, in part due to tomiseksj's post. And for the following reasons.

1) This particular cover, clearly mailed by the same sender has what looks like a bisected #408 and does have a medical enclosure. This one does not have the Commercial Sta. postmark and was postmarked the day after the bisected #614 covers.
2) Those with the #614 stamp had an "in period" usage in April 1925, which was issued in Jan 1924. (However, this cover with a possible #408 does not quite fit the "in period" usage very well since #408 was issued in 1912. But on the other hand, #408 stamps were and still are valid for postage)
3) Since the 1 1/2c rate was new, it is most probable that the St Paul post office did not yet have 1/2c stamps. The "( No 1/2c stamps)" typed on all these covers is evidence of that. I see here that the sender was covering his backside to prevent rejection by the post office and thus lose money.
4) The sender may or may not have been a collector. If he was, that fact alone would not make these covers contrived. He simply jumped on the new rate even though a stamp of that rate was not available.
5) Bisected stamps in the 1800s are rarely, if ever, called contrived stamps when tied on cover. They did it then because stamps of the correct rate were not available. We have the same situation here. Just because these in question were apparently bulk mail advertisements in the early 1900s should not earn them contrived status.

For what it is worth, this is my opinion.

Do you think a bisect would work nowadays? I think I'll try it and see. I'll send a letter to someone on the board here and they can tell us if they get it or not.

The PF cert says it is a "genuine usage". That means it went through the postal system and the cancel is genuine. It does not say anything about whether it is a philatelic usage or not. Philatelic usages are genuine, but they are contrived. Some contrived philatelic covers are worth real money, like zeppelin flights or many early first days. They are genuine but contrived.

I believe this sums it up best:

"Genuine" or "contrived" usage notwithstanding, the use of bisects during this period wasn't limited to the St. Paul area.

Whether it was commercial or philatelic, all the covers clearly did go through the mail. This has never been an issue.

My question remains the same -- why is the date/time ink/font in the postmark on the other 5 "same-type" covers different from the rest of the postmark. This is the basis for my comment that cover appears altered.

In the last cover shown (the one with certificate), the ink is the same and shows same day delivery. The postmark is complete, as is.

On the other 5 covers, is there a cancelling device with two separate inkers? I am unfamiliar with cancelling devices. Or did some postal worker really go through the trouble of stamping each of those bulk mail covers again with a well-centered date/time stamp in the circular cancel? The spacing/centering does appear quite similar on all the other covers. Was it added in by the postal worker to account for need for 1/2c postage because of rate hike the previous day?

Really interested in seeing what others can dig up or know about the cancellation.

Thanks to everybody who has been posting/researching!

k

They are machine cancelled, the postmaster might never have seen them. Or might have been a friend or relative of the sender, who knows.
Also, this is not "the early 1900's". This is 1925. Air mail was a common thing by then, and stamps were usually sent to post offices early for rate changes by then. There is no reason to think that a city as large as St. Paul and so close to another major city would not have stamps. Anyone can write "no half cent stamps" on an envelope. And how did the sender know in advance that that would be true? Did he go to the PO and ask, and then run home to prepare a letter when he found out? The postal clerk wasn't going to do it. He might have written it in, but type it??? These are all philatelic, and the inking difference might just as easily be a fluctuation in when the device was re-inked.

OK, thank you.

It also occurs to me that the date/time slug is a removable interchangeable part of the canceling device. If it was put in a bit closer to the ink roller than the rest of the cancel, it would produce a cancel such as this one, the closer part would get more ink and be darker than the rest.