Pen Cancellations Of Machins

Hi,

Just an fyi preface that I am coming back to stamps after a 35 interregnum and I have much appreciated the help and input I've received on this forum.

Its my understanding that pen cancellations are generally not desirable because it is indicative that the stamps were not used postally. The entire issue I suspect.

I'm currently going through a 7 pound box of kiloware that is almost entirely UK sourced and I am coming across a number of Machins that were pen cancelled.

It is Machins that I'm interested. Clearly, we know that Machins were used postally but does the rule hold here? Should these be discarded in favor of a traditional stamped cancellation mark?

Thanks,

Larry

In my opinion, yes. Anyone can make a pen-cancel. On OLDER stamps, pen-cancels are indicative of revenue usage, and usually not postal usage.

Of course, there really are some people who collect pen/Sharpie cancels of modern stamps. Some serious, some out of humor, some simply because they are more easily found on mail than normal cancels.

Also, on a very few classic era stamps, certain pen-cancels actually command a premium. These pen-cancels were the equivalent of "fancy cancels" and were often used by specific postmasters. An example of this is some of the pen-cancels of the Finland serpentines.

Have fun with your Machins!

k

Also fun is to look for sprayed on phosphor dots that were applied to the mail during the sorting process for tracking purposes. The dots appear in different shapes and different sizes. They also occur on other British/BC stamps. Here are some examples from a scan provided by a friend.

The "triangles" look like "diamonds" to me. But I guess I'm geometrically challenged.
k

The diamonds are two triangles bottom to bottom.

Understood!

I now realize that the circles are actually 2 triangles bottom to bottom that have had all the edges rounded.

Looking at those phosphor dots, I suddenly have an urge to go play scratch-off lotto?

khj, what do you win if you scratch a winner??
That '00' Machin that londonbus showed would be really nice.


A good site all about Machins:

http://www.adminware.ca/machin.htm

I particularly like the ones that are not really Machins but have the special symbols of each separate country on the stamps, or symbolic images, regionals I think, from each of the four countries in the United Kingdom, that came along while the machins were in use.

It would be neat if Post masters did still personalize the mail by hand cancelling (with pen or their own canceller). That would be an interesting collection / study.