Help With NY Postmarks Please

Hello all
I'd like some assistance from the experts on two New York postmarks on this UX7 postal card. It is a Canadian card sent from the Bank of Montreal in Brockville Ontario on April 1 1887 to the New York County National Bank in New York City.
There is a Brockville Ont. CANADA postmark with 13 line round obliterator and The Bank of Montreal blue handstamp on the back.
The other two postmarks I'm curious about. While I've seen samples of both online, there is no description.



The NY mark on the front reads P.O. 4-2-87 (the date) 7-1A N.Y.
The mark on the back is similar, but reads C 4-2-87 10-A N.Y.

I think I can assume the front mark is for the local post office (P.O.), perhaps a receiving cancel?
But the one on the back with the C baffles me. Is that possibly a letter carrier's cancel? I know letter carriers in Canada had their own hand stamps for a while, but I don't know about their American counterparts.

To be honest, I thought I'd posted this question a year or two ago, but can't find a thread. So any help with these would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Gonna bumps this one.
Lots of views, but no one has any ideas or info?

Jamesw,

No expert but based on my work on NYC registered marks I suspect the first "PO" was applied at the nyc gpo when the card was directed to Branch C "C". This would be consistent with how incoming registered mail coming from Canada was marked.

I would hope other board members will comment on this assumption based on their knowledge of first class mail processing in this era.

thanks for the info hoosierboy. Though this isn't registered mail, it does make sense.
Can anyone else elaborate on the above theory?

I think Hoosierboy is on the right track, I've been looking for examples of branch markings from 1870's to 1900 from NYC and there are examples of duplex "PO" marks with vertical lined shoe surrounding the "PO" on covers and then you have the examples of branch "A", "B", "C" etc. duplex marks with the branch letter surrounded by vertical 6 line elliptical shoe. This example is the fourth cover I've seen with both GPO and Branch marks....I have a cover from PO to Branch F, Branch P to PO and a Branch E to PO, I also have a few Branch to Branch covers. I am having trouble finding documentation on the regulations of the timeframes.

Morning Rick,

Branch markings on registered items go back to at least 1879. These are more related to when Branch and Station offices were allowed to handle registered mail. The following url is for the digitized US Postal Bulletins. They are fully searchable and should help in your search. The trick is to come up with one or two key words that catch what you are looking for.

www.uspostalbulletins.com/pdfsearch.aspx?pid=1&Group=48&id=48

This site also has the Postal Laws and Regulations, etc.

I am doing a study of NYC registered markings. Contact me off board if you want to share more info. Good luck with your efforts.

Hoosierboy - Thanks for the info! I am mainly interested in setting up a collection of covers (one each) from NYC bearing the various branch duplex marks with the vertical 6 lined shoe. I'm having trouble filling up the alphabetical string of covers but that's what makes it fun for me.....I have Stations A, C, D, E, F, G, H, P, R, V, and of course PO. I just wonder how many letters were used as Station designators, and what they used once the full range of the alphabet was utilized.....! Maybe they switched to horizontal shoe lines??? I have seen some like that.... and during the same time frames. Any documentary help on NY post offices would be great. I think I am just getting started with this! Thanks again !

If this 1882 Postal Guide is an indication, not all the letters were needed/used for stations (not branches!) and some were skipped:



Same from the 1887 Postal Guide:


The 1907 Postal Guide listed an explosion of numbered stations running nearly 2 pages up to Station 222.



It becomes clear that much incoming mail was marked as received at the main PO, and then again at the local stations.

Additional examples:
From D:



From F:



From H:



From L:


From P:



The size of New York City makes it a special case. New York City (and in a few other large cities like Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc) made many of their own forms rather than using the normal nationally-distributed forms. This one has a marking with a "NY / 13" in it:




Good luck finding printed regulations or instructions for how New York City handled their mail beyond the general way most cities operated. New York City is such a unique case due to its size that no doubt internal mail handling procedures had to adapt to respond to the volume, transportation logistics, etc.

That said, Marshall Cushing's 1893 volume "The Story of Our Post Office" does have some detail of mail operations in larger post offices including New York City on page 710 and following.

Another very useful book on large-city mail is Leonard Piszkiewicz's epic "Chicago Postal Markings and Postal History".

ah, brilliant! thank you everyone I was ready to give up on this one.
Just the info I need.

Hoosierboy, show us a few scans. Double-dog dare you!

And similar from Boston:


Another reference is Blake & Davis's "Boston Postmarks to 1890", it illustrates numerous marking but with very little additional text calling these "Boston receiving and distribution marks". The broad point being that studying other large cities like Chicago and Boston will often give insight into New York City.

With receiving marks often being the red-headed stepchildren of postal history and the reasonable cost for US postal cards in this era, it should be fairly easy to accumulate examples showing the marks and extent of use - AND the receiving marks should be on the front of cards more often than not.

John Becker...…….THANKS !!! That's some great info !! Now to search out those missing letters......

This is an interesting thread. I will add to it with a foreign cover from my collection showing a different kind of NY receiving cancel from 1877.

Linus

Hi,
I was forwarded to this threat in case of a question about a postmark from New York. And I think it fits in here.




There is a postmark of New York with a "T".
After reading this threat I have more information about this postmark. I do not know before. So many thanks!! ( maybe my scan can also help a little)
Juergen

Ah ha! This thread answers a long-standing question I had about these A,B,C... markings. I have one cover with both C and F branch markings -- apparently the recipient moved.



And also a cork backstamp of an A. The address corresponds to the A branch, so I think it's likely that this is an early branch marking.

GregAlex, how is that second envelope you show addressed? Is it hand lettering? The details and shapes look almost, but not quite perfect.

I'll jump back in. The Hartung cover is press-printed to serve as a pre-printed return envelope.

Here is another printed style from 1876, also with an "A" backstamp.




There are other typesettings beyond these two. And there a lot of these Hartung covers on the market.