Help With A Ceylon Stamp. Pre-Cancel?

Hi everyone. Does anyone know what is this black line on the stamp? Is this some kind of pre-cancel? Comments welcome.

Uneducated guess marker?
To split the stamp

In India, Hong Kong and Malaya also, ink marks or writing or corporate handstamps were allowed on stamps to prevent theft of the stamps when mail was taken by a courier or employee sent to the post office – there were pretty much no post boxes/ pillar boxes back in the day there. There are some ongoing efforts to match the pen markings to a specific company though I'm afraid this is a rather generic style.

There are other posts about such markings here on SCF but I'm not finding them. In any case, here's a Ceylon stamp with a company's private blue double oval handstamp used for the same reason. It's impossible to tell from the scan, but the blue oval is underneath the parts of the actual postal cancel, so it was clearly struck first:

The line was drawn to tie the stamp to the cover.
To prevent theft / re-use.
Common.

Thanks, hy-brazil. I'm always learning.

Here is an example of anti-theft/pilferage lines drawn across SL stamps on an 1867 Kolamba, Shri Lanka–Fayzabad to Kolkata redirected cover, franked with SL 1863 1d SG 49 and 1864 2d SG 50×2 stamps, paying the 5d postage for weight upto 14.18gm (½ oz) for mail from SL to India by Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company contract steamers, the rate in effect from Jan 1,1856 to Dec 31,1869.

Basic info on Indian theft prevention measures like preventive marks/company chops can be found here.

http://goscf.com/t/76070#681366

hy-brasil



hy-brasil, where did you get that news?

I am member of India Study Circle for Philately as well as Malaya Study Group but I am not aware of any such effort regarding the concerned countries.

Front cover I have.Colombo/Singapore 1885. British India stamps used in Ceylon.Large STAMP pen marking across the two stamps.

Wow, thank you Joy Daschaudhuri and perf12.

Sorry Joy, it's not a Ceylon study group but one of the Hong Kong groups that is identifying pen markings of Hong Kong. Apologies for the confusion.

It would be a useful though rather esoteric project for all the other post offices, perhaps as part of a scanned and recorded census of covers of the period.

I have some, and also a stamp that bears a very likeness to Joy's
P&O cancel, the "S" is particularly close.

The benefit of keeping many duplicates with Postal markings

Results of the small study
Style of marking
1 2 parallel lines (largest group)
2. single horizontal line (next largest)
3. one or more parallel lines on an angle tying the stamp to the cover
4."stamped" hand written
5. Name or Initials without lines

Joy's cross hatch matches item marking #278

Perf12 Cover "STAMP" and intials EK match #234