Wonderfully Odd-Shaped Hexagonal Stamps And Cancels

Belgian telegraphs were the first hexagonal stamps. A small block of them is a sight to behold (if you are attracted to the oddball stuff). Collecting a small sampling of them is easy and cheap. They get pretty expensive, pretty quickly, if you're striving for anything like completeness.

The hex theme carried over to cancels, too. A hexagonal cancel is often a telegraph cancel. I think there are exceptions to that, but cannot recall right now what they are. (?) Anyone?

I found a Belgium stamp in the old album/catalogue.
Haven't quite figured out what it is yet but it has a nice hex cancel from Brussels.

Light yellow (?) stamp as it really is (upside-down for viewing cancel) and then exposure adjusted in order to make the stamp readable or see-able.




Edit: I read the title on the stamp (header) 'Chemins de Fer' which is French for Horse of Iron or Locomotive or Railway (?) so this must be a Railway stamp which I have never seen before now. Neat!

By the way, what is a telegraph stamp actually used for? If you sent a telegram did you have to pay a tax?! And is this a telegraph cancel (?) on a railway stamp? What does that mean?

Puzzler,

It is a Railway Parcel stamp from 1882. The next issue was in 1895.

All of my Belgian Railway stamps have carriage-shaped cancels, so I hope someone with more info will pipe in with the answer to the Hexagon !

Londonbus1....Google is the answer

Thanks Londonbus1 !

I Googled and oogled a bit and found this Linn's article on telegraph stamps anyway, wherein the Belgium hexagonal stamps are mentioned.

Entitled: The road less traveled - telegraph stamps;
http://www.linns.com/howto/refreshe...rcourse.aspx

I have found, to my amazement that France had some hexagonal cancels in their Paris pneumatic mail system, which name by itself deserves further investigation by me.

A fancy cork cancel in the USA, a hex cancel for an Australian philatelic exhibition, hex cancels in the UK, Viet-nam, France (T enclosed in a hexagon for Taxe or postage due). There is no end. It's wonderful.

Try this website for more than you thought it was possible to know about Belgian railway cancels (and yes, the hex cancel is one of the cancels on these stamps):

http://hexjumper.be/bespcanc.htm

I bookmarked this for future reading. Next time I ask a question about hex cancels, someone please remind me I already have this bookmarked.

Collin

Then check out Italy's pneumatic mail system, too, if you haven't. The "D" prefix stamps in Scott. Sharp...

Thanks for the link and the stamp photo Cjd. The web site is a great one, very organized and lots of photos for us newbies.

That Italian stamp is excellent. As I said for Paris the Italia stamps and system deserves further investigation. Thanks for sharing!

Doug

It is also worth checking out Italy CD1-CD8, the pneumatic airmails, and CDRA1-2, the pneumatic airmail postal tax stamps, and NCDRA1, the occupation pneumatic airmail postal tax. You don't often run across these.

Italy has so many neat, oddball categories of stamps, that these seem almost plausible.

Perhaps on the DelCampe site would be a good idea to search for these. I have noticed Italian sellers on their. Thanks again Cjd.

If you find some, I am quite certain (as in 100%) the overprints are forged.

I have had some oddly shaped satmps. I have never had a hexagonal one, though. The hexagonal stamps seem perfectly normal, though, because stamps will come in different shapes and sizes, and this is a perfect example of one.

I shall stand corrected by the experts, but I think these are referred to as "geometrics"

Here is a hex cancel (duplex) from London
LS=Lombard street

HTH

Here is a Paris St. Marc hex cancel on France 123...




[I'm trying new scan settings...please be patient...]

By the way, Welcome StampGirl, to the forum, glad to have you here!

I think I know what you mean in that hexagonal stamps are shaped in the manner of a regular many-sided shape, like a triangle or square? If so, yes they are, I agree.

I am drawn to the shape because I have not seen many stamps (or cancels) in that shape as I used to play board games that had hexagons overlaid on the maps.

Thanks rod222, nice cancel!
I think this is an actual hex from Lombard St! (from ebay I believe)

Thanks Cjd, another cancel for me to collect! France stamps are nice.

I have read a bit (but not hardly enough) on the Pneumatic mail system and that had hex stamps or cancels I forget which.