PA Small Town Handcancels

In going through a box of handcancels I came across these three cut squares for small PA towns.



In particular, I found the first one rather interesting, as the typeface and general look of it appears to me to be a 19th century handcancel, yet it dates to 1940. I suppose it's not impossible that a small town post office might continue to use an "antiquated" cancelling device so many years later but just found it a bit unusual.

BTW, I checked on postalhistory.com and the Adamsdale, PA post office dates from 1892-1962, so it is apparently no longer in operation.

The first two postmarks are ovate bar duplex postmarks while the third is a barrel duplex postmark. The former were usually used at smaller post offices. In general you can find duplex postmarks into the 1950's and 60's, but most were replaced over time by machine cancels.

Thanks for the info. I knew the last one was different because the date was outside the circle (not my favorite, because the year often gets obscured).

If it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you define what you call this later oversized cancellation (1960). I recall seeing it in the past, but I thought it was confined more to parcels than to letter use. Anyway, I believe it has been discontinued for quite awhile:



Thanks again.

Sometimes with the barrel duplex postmarks you also get the traces of the outer ring of the barrel as part of the postmark. Barrel duplex postmarks may have the date as part of the CDS (Circular date stamp) or like yours, it maybe outside. I have read these types as "Triplex" postmarks as there are three parts to the postmark, but most people refer to them as a variety of a barrel duplex.

As for your 1960 Pittsburgh postmark, I don't know if there's a formal term, but a handstamped CDS postmark, double-ringed if you want to define it more. I've seen them on parcels and covers and they are pretty common. They are similiar to the red handstamp CDS cancelers we have post offices today.

I can recommend a really nice primer on postmarks - "Postmarks on Postcards" by Richard Helbrock (spelling?). You can use it for covers too, but it covers basically all sorts of machine and hand cancels used in the late 1800's through mid-20th century and other postal markings. Wait till you start finding Doanes, RPOs and RFD postmarks..it gets really intersting and loads of variations. Also there are many types of machine cancels out there - Universal, International, American, Perfection, Barry, Columbia, Barr-Fyke, Mack, Time-Cummins, Doremus and more. I'm still learning all this myself as I go along. Enjoy,
Will

you say the first two are ovate bar duplex and last is barrel duplex. How do you tell them apart?
They look identical except for the angle and the date.

In the first two, the oval (football) is only made from bars. The third has the number in the center. There can be letters instead of numbers on some postmarks, but the difference is in the "football". I'm away from home on work, but I'll check my scans to see if I can find other copies that show the outer barrel marks.
Will

Here's a good example that shows the outer barrel marks:

thanks Will..