Help Center For Japanese Stamps

Japan Prefectures
1998
Steiner Page 26.

Japan: Registration Indicia
The changing "R" fount, over time.

Outbid
Japanese Offices Abroad
Offices in China

SOLD $28 + ship
Kinda kicking myself, very rare these come up for auction, in my world.
Not game to count the Catalogue value I missed.

SCF members should note that all the China overprints are genuine here, if you want something for comparison.

I also haven't found any lots of offices like this in a long time. I don't see much at all even in the smaller Japan collections, either, though there were never many (genuine or forgeries) in collections on this side. Funny that I am slowly buying them one by one along with genuine Cherry Blossoms from a seller in Oz(!).

I spy with my little eye the middle 2 sen with a Shanghai IJPO cancel (not unexpected). There are also 4 Manchurian cancels; the 1s and one of 5s is cancelled Mukden, the other two are identifiable but unknown to me without running to references. But the 20s cancel with 3 stars at the bottom is a non-postal cancel.

Thanks for that running appraisal, saved.
Are there not 2 x IJPO postmarks?
(The brace of red 3 sen)

Would you please expand on the 20s non postal Pmk.

I.J.P.O. postmarks are for mail sent to foreign destinations but, as expected, the majority are from Shanghai. The one on the pair of 3 sen is unknown to me, so it's off to the references.

All Japanese cancels with the three stars at bottom are for something other than postage, maybe money orders or other business. I will look these up again to see exactly what specifically, but these cancels were never used for postage. For Japan in general, pre-World War II 20th Century issues, most of the cancels in my/our collections did not come from mail but from telegraph/telephone/other business receipt forms. It's remarkable how uncommon postally-used stamps of that period are. One day I will go into this subject in detail. Specific remarks on this bunch come first.

I'm BAAAAACK!

Pareidolia says the IJPO cancel on the 3s pair is CHEFOO with a really bad "E". Makes sense, anyway.

The comb cancel type with 3 stars at the bottom was used for telephone and telegraph purposes beginning with the Kiku/Chrysanthemum issue. It wasn't the only style used for that. So it more or less replaced the small double ring cancel we find on the Koban issues.

However, the 3 stars type was used postally during World War II. In Korea, Karafuto, Sapporo and some possessions since 1940, in Japan during 1943-45 except for military and seapost offices. The stars were also replaced by a prefecture name or equivalent character during that period. These wartime versions are probably going to be hard to find outside of Japan.

For the comb type, the only consistently postally used type is one with a time signature at the bottom, a combination of arabic numerals and a kanji character. Like this:


The leftmost character is "go" (p.m.) and the numbers are the time range in hours.

Collectors of used Japan all have partial strikes of various comb cancels, so the usage is indeterminate so long as the bottom section isn't present. But I think you'll find few purely postal cancels otherwise. A bit depressing to me, but there it is.

I'll save this, a tad hard to digest all that at once.

You call "Comb" type, I know it as "Bridge" type (In general philately)

"Comb" seems to be used by Japanese references. "Bridge" I know, but it is also called the "German type" by a number of references.

This was submitted by member graphis way back when in:
http://goscf.com/t/50284
which is now blocked.

Reading these things in stylized script is tough in this day and age. I can't even read the destination. If someone can translate at least a bit more, it would likely be useful; front and back are shown clearly. But here's some bare-bones info.

The postmark is from Tomiyama. There is/was more than one Tomiyama. The postmark date is 1937, November 8 (although November 9 is written on the back). It's addressed to someone named Iguchi for whatever that's worth.

Sc#466 1949 8Yen Doves over Nagasaki.

Miniature Sheet. Insects 1986 (With toning)
Scott Type A1245


Seek Translation please.
Suggest "Facsimiles" for 90 year Anniversary of Japanese Postage stamps
Could not find in Sakura, albeit I am not familiar with navigating that catalogue.

Unknown
3 differing papers
Last sheet is "Laid Paper" (Horizontal Laid.)